Friday, June 4, 2010

Broadway Neighborhood Center tutoring program seeks volunteers

Broadway Neighborhood Center tutoring program seeks volunteers

Broadway Neighborhood Center tutoring program seeks volunteers

Posted: 04 Jun 2010 01:34 AM PDT

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The organizers of a new tutoring program at the Broadway Neighborhood Center are seeking volunteers to help area children.

The program would provide one-on-one tutoring during the summer in reading while also building good relationships between youth and adults and helping to improve the southeast Iowa City area, said Sue Freeman, program director for the Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County.

"This neighborhood has taken a beating since last summer," she said, citing violence that led to a new curfew for youth and the debate on redistricting in the Iowa City School District that often grew heated. "At the heart of it are little children."

The tutoring program, geared toward students of all ages, began with 10 volunteers and students in March after organizers Gary Sanders and Jeff Currie talked. Sanders, who has been a substitute teacher in the district this year, said he sent out e-mails to people he thought could help recruit people to tutor children for about an hour a week. He said he saw children needing extra help in addition to the lessons they were learning from their teachers.

"It was obvious to me that we had hundreds of kids in this district who are behind in reading abilities," Sanders said. "Many of them are from other places."

He said he hopes this summer to recruit as many as 100 community volunteers to tutor for an hour a week. He said they would receive help from Nancy Porter, a longtime reading recovery teacher at Hills Elementary who is retiring at the end of the school year.

"I'm confident we're going to achieve this goal because we have the need," Sanders said. "People do not need any special training to be here. The most important thing is a willingness to help. We have hundreds of kids who need help."

Freeman said many of the youth who would be receiving help would come from the Neighborhood Centers' summer camp programs. She also said program organizers would work with families who move into the high-turnover Broadway Street area over the summer and connect the children with reading and math materials such as longer chapter-length books. The tutors then would read with the children, play memory and other games, and be friends with them.

"The kids live here now," she said. "Eventually, they could be your neighbor. People do move. All of our children benefit when they read."

To volunteer for the tutoring program or for more information, contact Gary Sanders at 337-7739 or garyiclabor@yahoo.com.

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