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Seniors Take Part in GoggleWorks Fellowship & Exhibit

student stands with her paintings at exhibit

McKenna Barker poses with her acrylic paintings at the GoggleWorks

student poses with her clay art sculpture

Kai Taylor poses with her clay art sculpture at the GoggleWorks

While most of their friends were spending their summers dipping their feet in the ocean, McKenna Barker and Kai Taylor were dipping brushes into paint and hands into clay as part of the Student Ambassador Fellowship Program at the GoggleWorks. The fellowship is an intensive and highly-competitive program that selects up to 16 students from area schools and pairs them with a mentoring professional artist for eight weeks over the summer, culminating with an exhibition of their work at the end of the fellowship. 

McKenna, a senior, was mentored by GoggleWorks artist Zoungy Kligge, who helped guide her through the creation of two “dreamy-aesthetic” open-acrylic pieces that represented retaining childhood memories. After McKenna presented her ideas to Mr. Kligge, he guided her through the process to help bring her ideas to life by first creating thumbnail sketches, followed by clay mock-ups, and then lighting her clay sculpture to help her visualize her work before she began to paint. “I had never painted something fictional before–I have always had a reference picture or something I am looking at that I can paint off of. But for my ideas, they were out of my head and I didn’t have anything to look at. So he helped me construct the idea of what I wanted to do and what I wanted it to be and what I wanted it to look like.” 

Kai, also a senior, was mentored by GoggleWorks artist Kristen Egan, who helped her conceptualize and create an air-dried clay sculpture of Icarus falling through the air with his wings falling apart. Kai said that besides her studio time with Ms. Egan, the process of exhibiting her work proved to be just as much of a learning experience. “I had a second piece that I wanted to display for the exhibit, but a day before the show, it just crumbled and fell apart and I had to restart a new project, and get it done in a night and put it on for the show, so it was definitely stressful.” Kai, who intends to go to college for museum studies, also said that she appreciated being able to see what went into creating an exhibit. “It was really beneficial for me to see how we had to set up for the show, such as filling out insurance and setting prices for our work. Plus, (Ms. Egan) has pieces that are shipping worldwide to other shows, so to have her perspective on that and to see her making a career as an artist was so helpful.”

Ms. Christina Pinkerton, an art teacher at the Senior High, recommended that McKenna and Kai apply for the fellowship because of these very real-world experiences that it gives students–including observing first-hand how people make a living being a professional artist. Mentioning how lucky Exeter students are to have access to such an experience locally to supplement their in-classroom experiences, she praised the GoggleWorks for their commitment to arts education and providing these opportunities to students. “All artists and teachers have various amounts of content knowledge that comes from a wide range of backgrounds,” she said, adding, “It’s so beneficial as an artist to experience different viewpoints so you can expand your skill set.”

McKenna, who is considering a career in product design, agreed on the real-world benefits of the fellowship: “The only experience I’ve had was doing art here with a teacher, which has been great, but it’s always been assignments. This was the first time that I really got a chance to do something that I wanted to do and have it be an actual big piece of work. It was a really great experience and I feel very lucky I got to do it.”

Budget Workshops Announced

As the Exeter Township School District begins to shape the budget for the 2023-24 school year, the District will hold a series of workshops to discuss budget topics with the community. Parents, taxpayers and all members of the Exeter community are invited to join us for these meetings. The schedule for the next two upcoming workshops and topics are below. The District will also post a synopsis of each budget workshop on our website shortly after each meeting.

The next two meetings are scheduled for:

October 26th at 6PM
Location: Junior High
Topic: Overview and Purpose of Workshop Meetings/Index Review

November 30th at 6PM
Location: Senior High
Topic: Revenue

Exeter Area Food Pantry Finds New Home in Old Gym

volunteers from food pantry stand in gym

When Karen Williams was a Lorane kindergarten teacher, she mentioned to her husband, Jack, that she had a surprising number of students who were eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches. To see what they could do, Jack and Karen approached the Greater Berks Food Bank (now called Helping Harvest) to assist the Exeter community in need. “When we went out there, they told us that 19606 and 19508 were the most underserved zip codes in the county. It was shocking.”

And that is how the idea of the Exeter Area Food Pantry began a dozen years ago. 

With the help of area churches, donations and volunteers, the Williams and a steering committee established the EAFP and began operating out of Reformation Lutheran Church serving approximately 10 families a month. However, as need grew within the community during the next decade, the EAFP started to run out of space at Reformation–which happened at the exact time that the pandemic hit. Explaining how it was a perfect storm of increased demand, lack of space, and the need to find a building that could provide them with a place to operate outside safely during the initial days of the pandemic, Karen said that the pantry couldn’t believe their good luck when the district approached them and offered them space in the Administration Building. “It was just phenomenal,” she said. 

Since the spring of 2021, the pantry has coordinated volunteers to come in several days before “the give,” as it’s called, to receive deliveries and stage food in the former gym of Lausch Elementary. During the early days of the pandemic, volunteers collected food for those in need and delivered it safely outside to a line of cars that pulled up under the former bus drop off, where both food and volunteers stayed dry in poor weather conditions and where people could safely interact with social distancing guidelines in place. Now, with those guidelines gone, the gym transforms into a grocery store each month as those in need come inside with shopping carts to pick and choose food themselves from the tables that are stacked with fresh fruit and vegetables, canned goods and baked items. The give also offers Senior High students an opportunity to earn their community service hours as students help elderly or disabled shoppers load their cars with groceries, or pick and choose items from the neatly-arranged tables. 

While the EAFP still receives approximately 90% of their food from Helping Harvest, Karen said that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to close the gap between what Helping Harvest is able to provide and what the community needs. “We’re now serving at least 200 families–and that number continues to rise every month.” She said Helping Harvest was only able to supply about 75% of their food this month–which necessitated them to use direct food donations and monetary donations they’ve received to supplement this month’s expected need. 

As need continues to rise, the Pantry finds itself also in need of more donations and more volunteers. For those who are interested in helping, monetary donations can be directed to Reformation Lutheran Church with a notation that the donation should be given to the Pantry. People who are interested in donating food can do so through a number of locally-organized food drives, such as the collection that the Latin Club organizes during next week’s Safe Halloween Night, or they can drop off food at the Administration Building on the third Thursday of each month from 8-11AM. She said the pantry will also accept canned food that is up to a year past its expiration date if it’s in good condition. Volunteers are always needed as well–including students who are looking for community service hours–and can coordinate their time by contacting the Pantry’s volunteer coordinator, Susan Swavely, at eafpvolunteers@nullgmail.com.

For those who need food assistance, the Pantry operates the third Friday of every month at the Exeter Township Administration Building in the afternoons from 1:30-5:30. Those in need are asked to call ahead at 610-572-2334 so that the Pantry can stock appropriately for each month’s give. 

For more information about donating to or receiving help from the Pantry, please visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ExeterAreaFoodPantry.

Exeter’s New Supervisor of Transportation Earns National Recognition

school bus driver holds magazine

It's National School Bus Safety week, and we're so very proud to announce that Exeter's Kaisha McCulley was recently selected as one of ten "Rising Stars" by School Transportation News, a nationwide trade magazine for school bus drivers and professionals. Ms. McCulley, who was named Exeter's Supervisor of Transportation during last night's board meeting, has been a bus driver for the district for 8 years. Last year, she became the district's permanent route substitute, which meant she had memorized every route in the district without using a GPS, and could substitute for any bus driver–a monumental task, said Ms. McCulley’s supervisor, Benjamin Bernhart, Director of Transportation. Last year, she also earned accreditation as a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation CDL school bus instructor trainer, allowing her to manage the district's training program for new and existing bus drivers.

“We’re so proud that Kaisha earned this distinction,” said Mr. Bernhart. “She is an incredibly dedicated bus driver and bus professional who is committed to safety and always learning more to enable Exeter to have the best school bus drivers. We are so very lucky to have her, and congratulate her for receiving this national recognition.”

Four seniors work juried into Scholastic 144 competition

students hold artwork

Congratulations to seniors Morgan Herb, Katie Ryan, McKenna Barker and Gabby Istenes for having their artwork juried into the Scholastic 144 competition at Shippensburg University. Their work, which could not exceed a combined 144 inches (hence the name of the competition), will be on display at the Kaufmann Gallery from November 5th through the 12th, and will be featured afterwards on their web gallery until March 1st.

Morgan's work, which was created in watercolor, depicts a young woman with her tongue tied--a nod to her childhood experience of having a speech impediment. Katie's colorful gouache work depicts a scene from the Smoky Mountains, which is where she vacationed this past summer. McKenna's oil pastel art is a moody, blue-hued introspective self portrait. Gabby also created a brightly-colored self portrait with colored pencils that depicts her favorite things, such as swimming, flowers and butterflies.

The students, who are all seniors, will have a chance to compete against other Pennsylvania and Maryland students to win awards up to $1,000.

Author Jordan Sonnenblick Drums Up Enthusiasm for Writing at ETJH

band plays in junior high auditorium
jordan sonnenblick teaches students during a writing workshop

Most visiting authors usually open a school assembly with a funny story, a reading from one of their books, or some sort of PowerPoint presentation. But when Mr. Jordan Sonnenblick, the acclaimed young adult author of books such as “Drums, Girls + Dangerous Pie,” and “Zen and the Art of Faking It,” came to Exeter Township Junior High today, he opened his assembly behind the drums. 

Music is a central theme of many of Mr. Sonnenblick’s young adult novels, often with his teenage characters finding solace, healing or popularity behind a drum, guitar or saxophone. So it was only natural for Exeter librarian Mrs. Kate Sowers to ask Mr. Sonnenblick if he wanted to incorporate music into his assembly and play with the Junior High's famed teacher-fronted rock band, “The Early Dismissals,” when he first came to visit the school in 2018. Fast forward five years later, when Mrs. Sowers invited him back, Mr. Sonnenblick happily accepted with a light-hearted caveat, “Only if we can get the band back together.”

Besides playing the drums today, Mr. Sonnenblick will focus a full day on inspiring 7th and 8th grade students to become better writers in writing workshops, assemblies and book signings. But, somewhat ironically, it was a student who inspired him to become a writer when he was an 8th grade English teacher and had a student in his classroom who was dealing with a sibling’s cancer diagnosis. As he explained to a hushed and packed auditorium this morning, in an attempt to help her, he looked for a book where the character was going through a similar situation–and came up empty-handed. It was then that he dedicated his nights and weekends to writing a similar story, which eventually became his debut novel, “Drums, Girls + Dangerous Pie.” 

That book, written in 2004, is now being read by all 7th grade students in Exeter, which was a purposeful and thoughtful decision among the reading teachers to coincide with Mr. Sonnenblick’s visit as students had a chance to meet, talk with, learn from and be inspired by an author they were able to meet in person said Mrs. Sowers. “I hope Jordan’s visit today will help them learn a little bit more about the process, practice and hard work it takes to be a writer,” she said, continuing, “But I also hope that it inspires them to see that if he can do this, I can do this, and that their stories are important.”