Garden Hills Homework Club

The Homework Club has been an ongoing project for almost three years. At the beginning of the semester, I use a variety of different marketing methods to recruit student volunteers from Parkland College to act as tutor/mentors for the program. Those interested complete a background check and attend an orientation which provides information about the program and working with children. We then meet twice a week after school at Garden Hills to assist the children with homework. Besides recruiting, orienting, and gathering information for our volunteers, I am also in charge of fundraising efforts for any supplies we may need and am there every session to assist with the project. I am proud to be part of this project because the Homework Club greatly influences everyone involved; the student volunteers reflect on their experience as a service-learning project in class, and the grades of the children involved have been shown to dramatically increase due to our program. I dedicate a lot of time and effort to this program throughout the semester and I am happy to be there each week to see the Parkland College and Garden Hill students working together. The future of the Homework Club will continue to be bright as long as I can find new outlets to recruit, encourage more teachers to let their children join the Club, and continue to seek out funding to help us create more opportunities for the children and eventually expand to other schools.