More than 400 elementary school students from the Elk Grove School District visited Sacramento State on Monday to meet their writing partners for the first time.

The Writing Partners program is a Community Engagement Center program that helps elementary school students improve their writing literacy and learn the benefits of higher education in hopes that they will pursue a college education when they grow up.

Schools involved with the program are Charles Mack Elementary, David Reese Elementary, Florin Elementary, Herman Leimbach Elementary and Prairie Elementary School. All five schools are elementary schools in Elk Grove.

This semester, there have been 400 Sac State students who participated in the program through courses in philosophy, English, teacher education, foreign languages, nursing and the educational opportunity program, said Sai Xiong, educational opportunity program counselor.

The idea of a writing partner was brought up in his learning skills class, said Frederick Adams, freshman mechanical engineering major.

“It was really fun and my writing partner was really cool,” Adams said. “I hope they continue this program because I’ve noticed an improvement in the writing of my partner.” This event represented the largest writing partnership ever to be engaged by the campus, as some 800 students involved with the project met to promote the value of higher education.

“Writing partners makes going to college a possibility for my students, and writing to a writing partner allows my students to practice their writing skills,” said Janel Robinson, fifth grade teacher at David Reese Elementary School.

This is the fourth year the writing partners program has been held at Sac State, Xiong said.

The students were dropped off in two locations, at the north end of campus at the bus loop and near the Hornet Bookstore.

After the drop-off, the students were taken on a tour of the campus. During the lunch hour, all of the students gathered in the University Union Ballroom where Associated Students Inc. President Roberto Torres welcomed the students.

Torres recalled how he was involved in everything he could sign up for during middle school, high school and college.

Torres advised all students to help out in their community.

He said there a lot of things students can do to help out the community. Having fun while helping others is a wonderful experience and the writing program is one of those programs.

“While writing sometimes can be a chore, but at the end of it all when you have superior writing skills, you will be able to go far in life,” Torres said. “Being a policeman, a firefighter or an astronaut are all things that being good in school will help you become.”

Sean O’Brien, vice-chair of Metro Edge, a program of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, inspired students about higher education.

Going to school is not just about what you learn in the classroom, when you go to college you learn everything inside and outside, O’Brien said.

“It’s not just about getting to the destination of your diploma, but about the journey all the way,” he said.

For the kids to be able to communicate with people that are at Sac State is a great opportunity, said Crissy Burruel, sixth grade teacher at Charles Mack Elementary. Events like the writing partners might be the first time someone from the child family will go to college because of the exposure to higher education.

“For the kids to actually be able to come on campus and visualize how it works is huge because everything they see is now clear and concrete,” she said. “We’re going to try to sneak into a class room so they can visualize that too.”

Roberto Cornejo, a sixth grader from Charles Mack Elementary, said the event was awesome and that the food was amazing. Food was served from Gordito Burrito on campus.

“The program helped me in writing a lot and it was fun,” Cornejo said.

Blazej Bruzda can be reached at [email protected].