As a junior at Brown University, I got into the Bonner Community Program – the purpose of which is to get students to engage with and do some service for the community. When the people at PPL said they were hoping to start a tutoring program, I knew it was something I could do here. As a kid, at my local library, I was tutored myself and I also did some tutoring. So, I thought I know exactly how to do that and can do some good here.
I really enjoy tutoring. I find it super rewarding and fulfilling to help the kids here. I guess because I had other people help me when I was younger and that made a difference. So, it’s nice to be able to kind of pay that forward a little.
We tutor K through 12. With the younger kids, it’s a lot of like basic math or reading. And, then with a lot of the high school kids, it’s more math and science focused. And sometimes I help with college essays or pre-college stuff.
I guess my biggest thought at first was not being sure how big of an impact this would have. And, it is like a fairly small tutoring program, you know, at any given day we’ll help two or three kids. We only have two tutors. But, you know, spending 45 minutes or an hour, sometimes two hours with these kids and helping them, I can see the impact.
I think that the access to some of these programs at the Library is extremely important when the alternative is paying a lot of money that you might not have. Some families can afford tutors, but there are some people who are not able to pay for it, like me when I was younger. My library did that for me. I think it’s extremely important that libraries are able to do this for the community.