Monday, June 22, 2009

Volunteer Conference - A Year Ago


After the 2008 National Conference I wrote a series of blog articles, illustrating ways the business community can mobilize volunteers and resources to support the work of tutor/mentor programs in many locations.

Few of these goals have yet been achieved, so I hope some people from the 2009 conference will read them and implement them in Chicago and other cities.


June 13, 2008 Civic Responsibility

June 11, 2008 Expanding the Volunteer Workforce

June 10 , 2008 War on Poverty Requires Sophisticated Battle Plan

June 9, 2008 "Our greatest challenge is the gaps between rich and poor." Jimmy Carter

June 7, 2008 Maximizing Value from Civic Engagement

June 5, 2008 Engaging Business Volunteers

2 comments:

sporn said...

If there's any way we can contribute to your programs please let me know - we run a private tutoring business in Australia -
http://www.activeunlimited.com/private-maths-tutors

Tutor Mentor Connections said...

There is a way that tutoring businesses like yours could be contributing to our work, and in doing so, be helping disadvantaged youth in Australia as well.

Create a section on your site where you use the maps and charts and articles on our site to educate your visitors about the economic gaps that make access to good schools, good tutoring, and diverse career role modeling less available to kids in high poverty areas than in other areas.

Help your visitors understand why learning is more difficult in areas where kids grow up with fewer learning influencers.

Then, advocate for businesses, volunteers and faith leaders to draw from the information we and others share on the internet, so they use this to help build constantly improving tutor/mentor programs in areas of high poverty.

As such programs grow, if they are properly funded, there should be many opportunities for professional tutoring services to add value to the learning and mentoring.

If enough people are encouraging this type of learning, we will increase the understanding, and increase the flow of resources, into all of the neighborhoods where such programs are needed.