Contact Us

P) 609.771.2548

F) 609.771.2573

E) bonner@tcnj.edu

Street Address

1938 Pennington Rd.

Ewing, NJ 08618

Please enter our parking lot from Pennington Road, we are located about 150 yards south of the College's main entrance.

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Mailing Address

Bonner Center for Civic
and Community Engagement

The College of New Jersey

P.O. Box 7718

Ewing, NJ 08628-0718

Staff

Pat Donohue, Director

E) pdonohue@tcnj.edu

Paula Figueroa-Vega, Associate Director

E) pfiguero@tcnj.edu

Richard Wilson, Program Assistant

E) rwilson@tcnj.edu

Morgan Reil, Democracy Project Fellow

Bridge to Employment Initiative

E) reil@tcnj.edu

Brittany Aydelotte, Democracy Project Fellow

Bonner Community Scholars and Education Coordinator

E) aydelot2@tcnj.edu

Giancarlo Giametta, Democracy Project Fellow

Special Projects Coordinator

E) giamett2@tcnj.edu

Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement

TCNJ Home : Academics : Bonner :

Bonner Community Scholars: Innovative Local Programs

The Comic Book Project

The Bonner Community Scholars make it fun for local youth to develop their literacy and art skills—by using the creation of comic books as the vehicle for them to do so. This is possible because of an innovative collaboration between the Center and The Comic Book Project—housed within Columbia’s Teacher’s College and led by Dr. Michael Bitz.

TCNJ students participate are trained by Dr. Bitz during the late summer or early fall—and then bring this program to those community partner sites that run after-school programs. This currently includes Columbus Elementary School and the Young Scholars Institute. Last year, the TCNJ team worked with their kids to turn one of the comic books into a short movie with their own soundtrack!

At the end of each program cycle, students submit their work to a jury of judges and the best appear in a national publication; many also appear at the CBP’s website. Participating New Jersey colleges (TCNJ and Middlesex County College) also produce a local publication—so more youngsters can see their own work in print and use this as a means to build their own self-esteem and confidence.

Minding Our Business

In an effort to help guide more local kids down a positive path, TCNJ has teamed up with Professor Sigfredo Hernandez (Rider University), founder of the Minding Our Business Program, to implement this nationally recognized youth entrepreneurship initiative at three different sites.

Youth participants in MOB go through a 15 week program that allows them to develop their own idea for a business, design a plan, obtain a loan, produce and sell their product---this last step takes place at a large MOB fair in the Spring at P.J Hill School in Trenton.

Nearly 25 Bonner Community Scholars and BVols were trained during the Fall and are now running this important program with youth from x community partner sites: Team MVP and the Trenton Hurricanes (2 AAU basketball teams that visit campus once a week), Greg Grant’s Academic Sports Academy at two different locations-- (at Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School) and Trenton Central High School.

At Rider University, students enrolled in two business service-learning course implement the program each spring with youth at other Trenton schools. TCNJ has worked with Professor Hernandez to develop a new model—one that relies on students in the Bonner Community Scholars Corps—some of whom are business students. The Center and the School of Business have held preliminary discussions about developing a community-engaged learning course or two to create another pathway for TCNJ students to learn and serve.

TCNJ’s student coordinator for the MOB project is Ray Weems-Pickens (weems2@tcnj.edu).