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Saturday, February 14, 2015

Introduction

Hi! My name is Kate and I am a senior at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Since my freshman year, I have been working towards my designation as a service learning fellow. I also was a service learning officer for two years, helping to promote volunteering and community service at Hathaway Brown. Through the service learning program at my school, I have volunteered at various organizations throughout Northeast Ohio, such as the Cleveland Foodbank, Transitional Housing, Canine Lifeline, 2100 Lakeside, and MedWish.

While I enjoyed the volunteer work I completed at these organizations, my true passion has always been tutoring and education, even at a young age. For example, at my elementary school in New York, I tutored a girl in my grade with Down Syndrome and learned a lot from that experience.

Since 9th grade, I have volunteered at the Saturday Tutoring Program, which is an organization located in University Circle at the Church of the Covenant. The Saturday Tutoring Program is my formal service placement through HB. This program was founded in 1990 and provides students with free tutoring in a variety of subjects, such as math, reading, writing, science, and social studies. Tutoring sessions occur most Saturdays throughout the school year from 10:00am-12:00pm. The vast majority of students come from schools in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, though I have seen a few students from Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights as well.

I typically tutor kids in grades 1-6, both boys and girls. Sometimes I only tutor one student; other times, I've had to tutor up to three students at once. I'd estimate that 98-99% of students in the Saturday Tutoring Program are African American, and most come from underserved schools.

The next five blog posts will chronicle five sessions of Saturday Tutoring during my senior year. They will demonstrate the diverse range of experiences that I have encountered throughout my time at Saturday Tutoring and hopefully give my readers a better understanding of the Saturday Tutoring Program. My final post will talk about education in Cleveland and summarize my time as a tutor.

I hope that my blog posts will inspire others to give back through volunteerism. Even just dedicating two hours a week to service can make a huge difference in someone else's life (and even in your life, too).

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