Thanks to your generous donations, we have met our goal!
Thanks to your generous donations, we have met our goal!
Welcome! We are juniors at Trevor Day School and we need your help!
We are a school club that tutors children (K-3) on Columbus Avenue and 108th Street. The program was set to restart in September, but it did not receive sufficient city grants and has not been able to reopen this school year. Without this program and its volunteers, these children would have no one to help them with their homework, leading to significant gaps in their learning. This program also provides a safe place for children to be after school before their parents finish work.
We have learned that the program needs $10,000 dollars by early November to reopen. Fortunately we have a promise to match every donation up to $5,000 and therefore need to raise the other $5,000 ourselves.
Please help us get our K-3 kids the homework help they need.
Memories with the kids we tutor:
In my many hours of tutoring, I have made memories that have shaped me as a person. One day, a five-year-old girl named ‘C’ showed up to tutoring upset. At first, she did not want to talk so I suggested she drew until she felt comfortable sharing her thoughts with me. After 15 minutes she asked me to sit on the floor with her where she whispered in my ear that she was upset because her mom promised her she wouldn't go to work that day. Instead, her mom picked up a last-minute shift. It's up to us (the volunteers and teachers) to make learning enjoyable for them. After some time, I understood that many of the kids needed emotional support not just tutoring help. Maybe they needed a nap, a 10-minute drawing break, or someone to listen to them.
It was finals week and I was drowning in work. I decided that for that week I would skip tutoring since it was the day before my math final. A week before, right as I was to announce that I would be absent next week, a seven-year-old boy named ‘C’ walked up to me, hugged me, and asked if I could work with him next time. Without thinking, I said yes and decided that three extra hours of studying time was not worth it if it meant I could help ‘c’ feel comfortable. At the time he was struggling with math. Anyone could teach him simple subtraction problems. However, ‘c’ wanted me to. This level of trust is something I will never forget.
There is a true sense of accomplishment for me in helping someone else understand something, articulating information in such a way that the other person can truly understand it. There are various methods to this especially when tutoring an energetic, smart, and funny 1st grader. While ‘c’ is very smart, he often struggles with reading which is something I also struggled with when I was his age, this makes helping him with reading even more rewarding. He often gets frustrated while reading (somthing I understand) but the key to doing my job as a tutor right is not being the best reader but being able to empathize with “c” and understand what he needs: motivation and not being frustrated with himself. ‘C’ is smart and responds well to motivation, being told “Good job!,” and “We’re almost done!” Figuring out the right approach to tutoring ‘c’ so he can make progress with reading and feel proud of himself was an important accomplishment for me.
(In order to protect the privacy of the children in these stories the children’s names were replaced with the letter “C.”)