Lately, I've been trying to make volunteering a priority again. Along with partying until dawn and getting regularly scheduled bikini waxes, it's one of the things in my life that has fallen by the wayside since having a kid. I know, I know--there's really no excuse, but I'm just saying that having an infant/toddler/preschooler permanently attached makes it a tad more difficult to zip across town for regularly-scheduled volunteering.A couple of days ago, I started by browsing a great website, All for Good, which is a volunteer clearinghouse website with pages and pages of listings for Miami volunteer opportunities. I found several that I am pursuing, but one of the easiest for busy but wired moms to participate in is In2Books. They organize a nationwide pen pal program for third - fifth grade students and adult volunteers, who over the course of a year read 5 books together and correspond via email to discuss the books. How cool is that?!?!According to their website, "from its inception, In2Books has focused especially on under-resourced neighborhoods where many students come from low-income, culturally diverse backgrounds." The organization has grown since its founding in 1997, and today, they are all-digital (except for the actual books, of course), and in 2009, "In2Books expands to all classroom nationwide and, with underwriting from the ePals Foundation and national sponsors, In2Books is offered free to the first 1000 Title I classrooms enrolled for the 2009-2010 school year."
Sign up is easy and fast. (FYI--you do donate $6 when you sign up to cover the cost of your background check, but considering you are working with children, isn't that a good thing?) Minutes after you sign up, you receive an email instructing you to write your welcome letter and watch a short video tutorial, and then you just wait to be contacted by your pen pal and his/her teacher.
Pen pals and students are matched and begin reading in September, so if you're interested in joining, do so ASAP here.
photo credit: nkzs/sxc.hu
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2 comments:
I was an adult pen pal last year, and it was really great! The comments and questions from your student are delightful, real, honest. I loved the books, too, all outstanding, engaging and quick reads for adults. The online "helps" for adults remind you that a third grader doesn't read legal briefs (just kidding). It does provide things like vocabulary words that you might want to include and some ideas for deep thought, not superficialities! With a library card from Miami-Dade Public Library System, you can ask to have a copy of each book delivered to the branch nearest your house, too. Warm fuzzies for you and knowledge that you are connecting with a kid.
Thanks for the tip about having the library deliver the branch nearest to your house. I am really looking forward to getting started, and from looking at their website, it seems like they offer a LOT of guidance online, and that it is supereasy to use.
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