Serving Others Beyond Orinda
Although I’m a month late, I hope one of your New Year’s resolutions involves service. It’s the kind of resolution that improves at least two lives at the same time. So this month I want to highlight an opportunity outside of Orinda to change two lives at once this year.
One of Rotary’s Five Avenues of Service is Youth Service. It’s also a core Orinda value. If you ever want to see a bunch of hands go up at an Orinda event, just ask who in the crowd has volunteered at a school, as a coach or manager of youth sports or at one of any number of youth organizations in town. The opportunity to raise our children in such a supportive, youth-oriented community is what brought many of us here.
But there are also great Bay Area programs serving children outside of Orinda where the need for help is perhaps greater.
To that end, the program I’m highlighting this month – and encouraging you to consider for your service this year – is Children Rising, an Oakland non-profit that works with the Oakland Unified School District to bring tutoring services and mentors to Oakland schools and students who often do not have access to the same opportunities ours in Orinda generally do.
Unfortunately, the tutoring organized by Children Rising is desperately needed at the schools they serve, particularly after so many students lost so much class time during formative educational years because of the pandemic.
According to the National Center for Educational Studies (nces.ed.gov), 44% of public school students started the 2023-2024 school year behind grade level in at least one subject – primarily language arts and math. Unsurprisingly, the NCES national data shows that number is closer to 60% in schools and districts like Oakland’s that serve lower-income communities and large communities of color.
Remember what I said about service improving two lives at the same time? I’ve volunteered for Children Rising and tutored students in math remotely over Zoom for the last two years.
It’s an incredibly rewarding experience because you work with the same student (or students if you can do more than one session) over the entire school year. You get to know them, see their progress, and be part of their excitement when they master another skill or see their test scores improve.
My tutee works with me on Thursdays and another tutor (also a Rotarian) on Tuesdays. Last year ended on a high note for us when our student’s teacher stopped the Children Rising coordinator in the hall to tell her that our student is doing much, much better on his math tests, crediting the extra work he is doing in Children Rising. What a day!
If you want to make a concrete difference in a child’s life and experience that feeling of lifting you both higher when you put service above self, Children Rising (children-rising.org) always needs more in-person and online tutoring volunteers.
It takes only one hour a week to make a difference in a child’s life, and I encourage you to give it a try.
