Apollo Career Center teacher Charlotte Howbert gestures while teaching her high school early childhood education class.
Craig Kelly | The Lima News
LIMA — For Charlotte Howbert, helping her students learn how to connect with and invest in the life of a child is one of the greatest feelings in the world.
“It’s more than a job,” the Apollo Career Center teacher and Jefferson Award winner said. “The most rewarding thing you can receive back from those kids are those wonderful, heartwarming smiles or those ‘aha’ moments when they see something.”
Howbert teaches early childhood education for high school and adult students at Apollo. And while that takes up a lot of time and energy, Howbert also makes time to volunteer for several organizations. She helps at the Cridersville Firemen’s Jamboree and with the Allen County Sheriff’s Office with its golf outing, “shop with a cop” program and National Night Out, to name only a few. That desire to invest time and effort in the community and give back to others made Howbert an ideal candidate for the award, according to nominator Mariah Cunningham.
“Mrs. Howbert is deserving of the Jefferson Award for the multiple ways that she helps people within the community while not expecting to be recognized or ‘advertising’ all that she does,” Cunningham wrote in her nomination. “The only way I learned of what all Mrs. Howbert does is to ask other people who know her.”
Cunningham also mentioned Howbert’s efforts to instill in her students that same desire to give back. One project Howbert and her students have recently started is working with children in foster care at Allen County Children Services once a month while foster parents attend training classes.
“It’s a great learning opportunity for my students because the lesson plans they will prepare here they actually get to go implement, and that way, I can help guide them through that,” Howbert said. “Right now, we just donated a ton of new toys there, so that was really cool because a lot of the toys are outdated, donated either from workers that they have or from other people in the community.”
While Howbert and her students make sure the foster children they work with are having fun, they also work to ensure the time the students have with them is beneficial to their development.
“There are a lot of puzzles — color sorting, especially — and they need sensory toys, things like that,” she said. “So my students came up with a survey and we took down a list of what things we saw at the center and what fun toys the kids want.”
As busy as Howbert has been with all these activities, she expressed how rewarding these efforts have been for her, as well as how humbling it is to be recognized with this Jefferson Award.
“I never turn down the community when they need help,” she said.
JEFFERSON AWARDS
The Jefferson Awards honor 10 individuals for their community service. There will be an awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the City Club in downtown Lima. At the ceremony, one of the winners will be selected to represent the region at the national Jefferson Awards dinner in Washington, D.C.
