Literacy Volunteers: Celebrate a decade of impacting children's lives
By
The Jewish Advocate
What do 76-year-old great-grandmothers living in independent living centers, an eighth grader and Rashi School and a 45-year-old Natick dad all have in common? Each of them is giving a child a brighter future.
They're among the 600 volunteers who go into underserved urban schools each week as volunteer reading tutors through the Greater Boston Jewish Coalition for Literacy (GBJCL), a Jewish Community Relations Council program supported by CJP.
Now celebrating its 10th year, GBJCL has sent a whopping 2,200 volunteers into schools over the past decade. These volunteers are organized into 40 teams through synagogues, day schools and Jewish organizations.
And their impact has been on a grand scale: Some 7,800 youngsters have benefited from a total of 132,000 hours of individual tutoring.
"It's the most wonderful thing, the gratification when you see the children improve," says Paula Weitz, a resident at Coleman House, Jewish Community Housing for Elderly facility in Newton who tutors at the Everett School in Dorchester. "You just fall in love with the kids and it makes you feel so wonderful to be appreciated."
And now, the program is benefiting young readers in another way: by making sure they have access to the books needed to stimulate growth and development. Over the years, the Jewish community has donated more than 90,000 books to the program and school libraries. Now, to celebrate their 10-year milestone, GBJCL has launched BOOK IT, a 'mega' book drive designed to put another 10,000 new books into city schools. This community-wide initiative involves individuals, synagogues, Jewish organizations, religious schools, pre-schools, day schools and Hillels. At Newton's Temple Emanuel, for instance, the bar and bat mitzvah students and members collected $11,500 for new books at the Hurley School in Boston.
The public is invited to celebrate both the success of the book drive and GBJCL's first 10 years of helping youngsters learn to read at a Literacy Festival 3-5 p.m. on June 3 at the Boston Public Library in Copley Square.
