March 28, 2024
Local News

EVERYDAY HEROES: Former Rock Falls foster grandma honored for dedication to students

Those who have given their time to help make a difference throughout the state were honored last week with the Governor’s Volunteer Service Award, recognizing the efforts of 27 people, including a former Rock Falls foster grandma.

Marjorie “Midge” Murphy was recognized for her work in the Foster Grandparent program, a nationwide program aimed at bringing volunteers into classrooms to help mentor students.

The Serve Illinois Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service received more than 215 nominations, honoring Murphy as the Senior Corps volunteer for the northwest region.

Murphy was in classrooms for more than two decades at Merrill and Dillon in Rock Falls, the last four in Kathy Scholl’s first-grade classroom.

“I was lucky enough to get her when she was very experienced,” Scholl said. “I had never had a grandma before in my classroom. What I appreciated most about Midge was she was able to work with each student, almost every day, one-one-one.”

Murphy started in the program in 1998, after she retired from a customer service career at Lawrence Brothers.

She started out volunteering in kindergarten before moving on to first grade, and was in the building day after day for years.

“You just get addicted to the children, and I feel like they need someone who’s like a grandparent,” she told Sauk Valley Media in 2019.

Murphy was in charge of library in the classroom, and would get a chance to either read to students or have them read to her in order to hone their own reading skills.

“She was able to give them that gift of one-on-one and the attention that they so need and sought from her,” Scholl said. “She was patient with them. She was just such an experienced grandma in the classroom. She knew how to work with them in reading or when she worked with them on math, or handwriting, or even just to focus.”

The Foster Grandparent Program has been shown to give students a boost. Program director Susie Welch said that for last semester, students working with a foster grandparent had a 95% chance of improving in school. Murphy’s students had a 100% success rate.

“I truly believe that, because she introduced books at each student’s level and listened to them read, helped them make corrections, she really had a positive impact on their progress,” School said. “Sometimes the kids wouldn’t be able to read at night with the parents, but almost every day Midge would read with every student that I had. It was just a blessing to have her in the classroom.”