Editorial: Round of applause

Published 10:00 am Sunday, June 23, 2019

The Tifton Gazette offers a round of applause for individuals and organizations doing good things in our community.

Tifton North

New businesses are always something to be celebrated and applauded.

After more than a year of planning, the groundbreaking for the Tifton North development was held at 10:30 a.m. at the 12 acre site, which is located on Hwy 41 across from Harvey’s Supermarket.

The project is led by brothers John and Michael Bowen of 31 North Capitoa Partners.

Michael Bowen said that they want to develop the location as a gateway to Tifton from the north and that they want the exit to become a destination in its own right.

John Bowen said that the site location is a blank slate and allowed them to be creative with what went in.

Clearing the site is set to begin within the week, with development starting shortly after.

Tifton North is slated to have a Courtyard by Marriott hotel to anchor the area and serve the University of Georgia Tifton Campus Conference Center.

Hotel construction is expected to take 14 months. It is expected to open in October of 2020.

The project will also feature retail space; a Main Street area with a park; band stand and splash pad; and a dog park.

Summer Reading Program

School’s out for summer and the Tifton-Tift County Public Library summer reading program is in full swing.

Summer reading programs help students prepare for the next school year.

Kids who don’t read over the summer lose literacy skills over those months.

It’s part of the “summer slump” or “summer slide,” the tendency of kids to lose part of what they’ve learned over the school year if they’re not doing anything to reinforce it.

When school starts back up, they have to play catch-up, trying to get back to where they were at the end of last year while struggling to to keep up with what’s going on with the new year.

While the “summer slide” can happen across the curriculum—affecting everything from science to math to writing—losing reading skills can affect performance in all classes; it’s the fundamental skill that much of learning is built on.

The library’s “A Universe of Stories” reading program offers a way to hold off the summer slide, a way for students to maintain, if not improve, their reading skills.

And if you and your kids haven’t got involved, it’s not too late. The program runs until July 18.

For more information about summer reading, contact the library at 229-386-7148.

SparkIT organizers

For the fourth year in a row, SparkIT Computing Camp attendees learned about computers and coding while on summer break.

SparkIT offers computer science education for Tift County middle and high school students.

The camp, which was held at Matt Wilson Elementary School, was the brainchild of Dr. Courtney Smith Lamar, who grew up in Tifton. A computer science professor at Clark Atlanta University, Lamar wanted to find a way to give back to kids in her hometown and decided that teaching them about coding, which is a rapidly growing field, would help “spark” an early interest and help kids get on the pathway to a career.

Twenty-three campers attended this year.

Lamar said that having that community support was important for getting her where she is and she wanted to give back.

The camp is a collaborative partnership among SparkIT, Inc., Delta Lambda Zeta and the Tift County School system.