Douglas Elementary Finds BTI Connects With Their Children

September 21, 1999

When lunchtime arrives on Wednesdays, Tyrone Sanders smiles as he makes his way quickly out the office door and down the street to Douglas Elementary.

Volunteer Kathy Wolinski listens as fourth grader Demetrius McCullers reads to her.

For the second year in a row, Sanders plans to devote thirty minutes to each child each week as a tutor. The collection specialist is one of 30 Business Telecom, Inc. (BTI) employees who volunteered last year to work with students at Douglas.

"I worked with two young men. To inspire them and get an understanding of them was a challenge, like running a marathon race," Sanders said. "We worked on math. They would bring their math books and we would work on their lessons for the week."

Sanders was recruited to serve as a volunteer by Kathy Wolinski, a fellow employee who first visited Douglas Elementary in 1997. Offering to work with English as a Second Language (ESL) students, Wolinski met and became friends with Douglas ESL coordinator Ofelia Sherrill.

"As I went into the classrooms to meet the children I tutored, others would walk up to me and ask, 'Will you be my friend, too?'" Wolinski said. "I couldn't tell them no, so I began to tutor more children."

"It takes something to be an effective tutor."

--Principal Vicki Perry

Wolinski is known as "Mrs. Kathy" to fourth grader Demetrius McCullers. They visit their usual meeting place, the school's media center. Demetrius finds a Paddington Bear book and talks about playing basketball with his cousin over the summer. Reading aloud, he makes his way through page after page of the chapter book earning words of praise from Wolinski.

"Mrs. Kathy is nice. She always tries to make me feel happy," said Demetrius. "She helped me learn a lot about math."

"I remember a child's face lighting up when they saw their mentor coming up the walkway into the building."

--Teacher Carol Baldinelli

Wolinski was there cheering for him last year, when Demetrius was in a track and field event and had a role in the school play.

"To watch a child grow, to see them feel important, to see them feel smart and to let them know that someone cares about them makes you feel so good," Wolinski said.

When Wolinski began working at BTI, she found she was just three blocks from the school where she volunteered. She began to recruit fellow employees, and Sherrill worked with her to pair the right adult with the right child.

Sherrill discusses the program with Douglas Principal Vicki Perry.

"It takes something to be an effective tutor," said Vicki Perry, Douglas's Principal. "You want volunteers to have a commitment to meet the children's expectations. The way this program was set up, it has worked so well."

Perry and Sherrill agree the program has made the tutored children feel better and work harder, but more importantly, the students are achieving more. Teachers are seeing the result of the work by child and mentor.

"I remember a child's face lighting up when they saw their mentor coming up the walkway into the building," said teacher Carol Baldinelli. "I can't sit one-on-one with each of my 25 children. But a tutor can focus on one child, listen to them read and ask questions that improve reading comprehension."

When Wolinski began recruiting tutors this year, 35 people quickly joined. Twenty of them had volunteered last year. Working with the school and fellow employees, Wolinski has developed a sign in sheet that allows the volunteers to quickly check in for their lunchtime visits. Seasoned volunteers are being asked to serve as mentors to new volunteers.

"People want to help. Some feel problems are too big for them to make a difference or their schedules are too packed to fit in time to volunteer," Wolinski said. "But the people I work with have found this fits into their lives, using one lunch break a week to visit a school three blocks down the street."

Students reward volunteers with higher test scores, improved reading ability and increased appetites for learning.

And each week, volunteers leave the school knowing they made a difference in a child's life.