A surprise visit by MSU women's basketball junior forward Liz Shimek excited teacher Reanique Smith's class as they talked about their favorite sports and colors.
"I like being around kids, it's a lot of fun," Shimek said while visiting the second and third grade class at Lansing's Willow Elementary School, 1012 W. Willow St. "Kids get so excited to see you, they think the world of you."
Shimek participates in Putting Athletes and Community Together, or PACT, a program that allows MSU student athletes to participate in community service. One of the activities sponsored by the program asks athletes to become pen pals with a classroom at a Lansing elementary school. The student athletes also make a classroom visit.
Shimek said she initiated the relationship by writing to the students about herself, including details about playing basketball, growing up on a farm and studying business at MSU.
"The questions they ask and their minds are so creative," Shimek said. "Just when I said my dad's name is Tom, they were like, 'My dad's name is Tom, too. My uncle's name is Tom, my brother's name is Tom.'"
This kind of classroom visit is made by all student athletes, such as Shimek, at one point in the year. This year, there are 78 athletes in 78 classrooms in the Lansing area, making the Pen Pal Program the largest outreach event sponsored by PACT.
The yearlong program is coordinated with the Young Spartan program through the MSU Service-Learning Center, where MSU has a partnership with nine elementary schools around Lansing.
PACT partners with several different organizations to get the student athletes into various types of outreach activities. Since this specific sector of PACT has been reorganized and marketed, more people are going to Angela Howard, MSU's associate director for NCAA CHAMPS/Life Skills, to get a wider variety of student athletes at their events.
"So far, (PACT) is just in its infant stage," Howard said. "It encompasses all student athletes. It isn't just football going out and doing something and basketball is going out and doing something and hockey is going out, you get all the student athletes."
Shimek enjoyed the funny questions and comments made by the class. After reading the picture book "Hello Sparty!" by Aimee Aryal, to the class, she passed out sports cards and a team poster.
"It is a great experience just to get out into the community and give back," Shimek said. "It's really important we go out into the community and show we're not just basketball players."
Smith has been involved in the program for a couple of years and sees the different benefits it can give her students.
"It is a good way to get kids to write actual letters back and forth," she said.
She said writing letters is educationally applicable, by helping students who need extra help with the writing process and that it's good for them to meet someone at the collegiate level.
Jazmin La Vigne, a 9-year-old Lansing resident, wrote to Shimek about her favorite color and her favorite sport, basketball. La Vigne said she likes writing the letters and hopes to do it again.
Other Big Ten schools, such as University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University, also have programs that get students involved in the community. Howard said every school has one of these kind of programs, but varying degrees of activities set them apart.
Howard attends conferences where she meets with other coordinators of programs like MSU's and exchanges methods and ideas on getting more student athletes involved in the community.
"It is not like we face each other on the field and they're going to figure out my plays," Howard said. "All we are going to do is to help other people in other communities. That is what's nice about my job."
MSU's community service program has nearly 300 athletes involved in programs year-round. Last year, the program was honored for the second consecutive year with a national award from the National Consortium for Academics and Sports for having the most outreach contacts with children in the Midwest region.
"The ultimate goal is how do we develop our student athletes," Howard said. "I just want to keep being innovative and keep creating opportunities for our students and help our community."
