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Jodi Broneak-Winkel
Summer 2010 Citizen of the Season
Jodi Broneak-Winkel has been awarded the Citizen of the Season Award for Summer 2010. Jodi is a volunteer teacher at the Springdale Kiddie Co-Op Preschool. She volunteers three days a week to teach the younger students. The only pay she accepts is to cover the costs of teaching supplies.
Michelle Hovorka, who nominated Jodi, said ‘The children have greatly benefited from the Co-op and enjoy Jodi’s energy and enthusiasm. We’ve been able to maintain affordable tuition due to Jody’s involvement in the program. Jodi recognizes the value of the children in this community and has unselfishly given her time and love.’
Before coming to Springdale in 2002, Jodi was an early childhood teacher in Minnesota. She also helped establish a program for children at a battered women’s shelter, appealing for and receiving grant funds from the Minnesota State Legislature. “Intervention work is almost pointless unless you can break the cycle of domestic abuse by teaching the children that there’s another way to handle anger issues,” she explains. She was also a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed representative of children going through the legal system.
Jodi started with Kiddie Co-op nearly from the beginning of the program. “Birth through pre-school is the most important time for learning in a child’s life. For a small town like Springdale to have a pre-school and give children a jumpstart on education is representative of what a wonderful community we have in Springdale,” says Jodi. “I never thought when I moved here that I’d be able to build my teaching career here. But I have, and I feel so lucky.”
Springdale Town Council recognizes that Zion Canyon is lucky to have Jodi.
