The Littlest Volunteers
Written By Jeff Wagenheim
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Grand Prize
PLEASE Foundation tutoring program:
Susan and Phillip Endom, ages 7 and 5, Old Metairie, Louisiana
Last year, with the second of her two children reaching school age, Yvette Endom knew exactly what to do with her newfound free time. The former school psychologist had always wanted to volunteer at a school, and if Hurricane Katrina had made anything clear, it was that people around the Gulf Coast needed help. The Endoms themselves were displaced from their home in the New Orleans suburbs for nine months after Katrina, but Yvette knew all too well that many people hadn't even had the means to evacuate. Believing that economics is tied to education, Yvette created the nonprofit PLEASE (People Leading Educational and Spiritual Excellence) Foundation, with a mission to help kids from underprivileged families overcome their disadvantages through education. She looked for a school to adopt and began tutoring daily at Cathedral Academy, a small elementary school in the French Quarter.
Yvette generally tutored during the school day, but on Wednesdays she came for the after-school program. That way, she could bring her children Susan and Phillip with her. "I wanted to expose them to volunteering in action," Yvette says. Almost immediately, Susan and her second-grade friend Shay Adams, who often joined the Endoms for the short trip into the city from Old Metairie, wanted to do more than watch. They grabbed books and began reading to the kindergarteners. "I really love helping people," says Susan, 7. "We have these cards with pictures on them, and I show the girl the picture and she says the word. After we're done we get to go outside and play." What started with the girls helping with reading has evolved into them taking the initiative, bringing in their own books, dreaming up their own art projects. When Phillip saw what his big sister was doing, he wanted in too. A 5-year-old tutor? Phillip was in prekindergarten, but was reading at first- grade level so he'd sit with one of the pre-K kids and go over ABCs and numbers with flash cards.
At this point, the PLEASE Foundation has also recruited 50 adults to volunteer at Cathedral Academy. What has been most impressive to Sister Bernadette Mathieson, who was principal at the school when Yvette began tutoring, is not that the Endom family offered to help, but that they kept showing up. People had promised to volunteer before, but often they didn't follow through. They showed up once or twice, made a big splash, and were never heard from again. "Consistency is more difficult, I think, than volunteering for one big project," says the Dominican sister. "It's also what our children need most."
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