Volunteer Center of Sonoma County

Description

Work in the classroom under the direction of the teacher helping students with reading and/or math. This requires a commitment of 1 hr./wk for a school semester. Volunteers must be fingerprinted.

The Literacy Connection Academic Mentor program has just completed 12 years of recruiting, training, and preparing volunteers to go into the classrooms of Sonoma County K-12 schools. This year 250 volunteers worked in 30 different schools helping students in the regular classroom and in the after-school programs. One-on-one help is sometimes the only way that students who are also learning English as a second language can do their work. Sometimes the student has experienced so much failure in his school life that he is reluctant to participate in class activities. He has lost self esteem. Volunteer helpers give that student a no-risk opportunity to experience success - even one word at a time.