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400 youngsters learn Indiana Heritage
at fun Manchester College program May
2-4
PIERCETON, Ind. – Abraham Lincoln’s integrity and values helped him save
the nation. Hundreds of youngsters in northeast Indiana know that.
Hundreds more will happily learn the life lessons of Lincoln on May 2-4
at Manchester College’s Koinonia Environmental and Retreat Center south
of Pierceton.
 Bill
Sanders’ Lincoln is among a breadth of lessons the enormously popular
Indiana Heritage Program brings to fourth-graders at Koinonia. Each day,
bus loads of children from area schools will arrive with their teachers for four
hours of learning and activity, said Koinonia Director Rainn L.
MacPhail, biology instructor at the College.
The setting couldn’t be more perfect: 100 acres of paths, restored
prairie, a 5-acre lake for discovery and fishing, teaching rocks … and
an activity center brimming with natural history.
Throughout, Indiana Heritage is about education, delivered in an
interactive, fascinating environment. The children play pioneer games,
sing, climb aboard a prairie schooner, listen to storytellers … and ask
lots of questions. Enthusiastic presenters, re-enactors, artists,
musicians and historians fill the day – many in period costume,
including a fur trader, a Native American, and a Revolutionary War
expert.
 The children assert right away that Bill Sanders isn’t really Abraham
Lincoln, even though he seems pretty real in his lessons, his top hat
and beard. But Sanders, a former Lincoln National Corp. vice president,
is no ordinary Lincoln impersonator. He’s a Lincoln scholar who
faithfully uses the president’s life as a model for achieving the
American Dream … with stories that reveal Lincoln’s honesty, integrity,
loyalty, lifelong education and humor. He holds them rapt in his
delivery of the Gettysburg Address. “We just connect. They seem to
listen intently and we have fun together,” says Sanders, a docent at The
Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne who also tailors his Lincoln messages to
college and other adult audiences and leadership conferences.
Indiana Heritage fulfills state social studies requirements for
fourth-graders in 10 areas, said Sue Gnagy, assistant director of
Koinonia.
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Children learn about the importance of the Revolutionary
War and other key events and people in the development of the state,
including Chief Little Turtle, William Henry Harrison and George Rogers
Clark.
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They learn about the Civil War, and about religious
groups, The Underground Railroad, and Levi and Catherine Coffin.
·
They learn about Indiana’s artists, authors, performers
and presenters – from Gene Stratton-Porter to Janet Scudder and the
Hoosier Group.
While schools pay a per-student fee of only a few dollars, the program
is possible through generous donations from
the Dekko Foundation, Kosciusko County Community Foundation, Community
Foundation of Wabash County, Biomet, DePuy Orthopaedics and Bart's Water
Sports.
About 4,000 students from area schools participate in Koinonia’s
programs annually, primarily from Kosciusko,
Wabash, Whitley, Allen and Noble counties. To schedule classes, groups
or home-schoolers at the center, contact Director Rainn MacPhail at
260-982-5010 or
rlmacphail@manchester.edu.
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