Making a Difference One Child at a Time

If you were to ask our AmeriCorps members why they give hundreds of hours of their time in service to the community, you might expect to hear:

• to build my resume, and gain experience,
• to earn an AmeriCorps Education Award (a full-time award is $5,300.00), or
• to get student loan forbearance.

And those are good reasons. But when it gets right down to it, the things that keep you going during a rigorous year of service are the moments with children that let you know you've made a difference in the life of a child. Here's what some of this year's AmeriCorps mentors had to say:

One of my second grade tutees was having a lot of trouble saying the word “asked”. So one day we kept repeating it back and forth for a minute or two. She finally got it down, but still felt a little unsure. The next day when she was reading aloud she read the word perfectly without hesitation. Instantly she realized what she’d just done and looked at me with a huge smile on her face. It was very triumphant.

A 4th grader asked me what “puke” meant. I told him it was the same as throwing up. He asked if it was a bad word. I said I didn’t think so. I told him “vomit” was the technical word, so he started saying, “This makes me want to vomit”. “ I am going to vomit”.

I had a very discouraged tutee who usually hates to read. After reading a book together, he told me “I thought this story was goanna be boring. But after we read it, it's good! It’s exciting!”

I have the best tutees!!! They are all great kids and look forward to seeing them everyday. They have all been improving and it makes me feel good to see them trying so hard. My hardest kid to tutor (who really isn’t that hard) has made the most improvement.

One girl I’m tutoring is graduating from the program because she has improved so much. When I told her, she was sad to go and started messing up her words on purpose and said she was doing it so she could stay in tutoring with me. It was nice to hear that she has fun and she’s learned a lot too.

My tutee Jackie has finally come out of her shy shell, and even her teacher has noticed improvement. She told me she reads books at home, and sometimes during tutoring read-aloud, she gets really excited and tells me she knows what’s going to happen next. Then she recalls the entire story in detail. I’m SO proud she’s reading on her own.