Service-Learning VIPs: Madeline and Stacey

Lake Forest Academy's Afterschool Tutoring Center

"Our group volunteered to help at an afterschool program in a nearby elementary school. We helped the children who could not go home immediately after school with homework, and then played games with them. When we first arrived, we put together puzzles with the little kids while they had a snack. When the older kids started to arrive (2nd-4th grade), we went into another room to help them with whatever homework they had questions on. Each one of us chose a child to work with, and there were about enough people to have a one to one ratio. It took the children about forty-five minutes to do their homework. They would get very talkative and it was hard to calm some of them down. We also remembered some skills we forgot we had, like long division. After the children finished their homework we went back into the snack room and played Children’s Pictionary with them. Charlie and Devan led the group, which was mostly separated into one team of boys and one team of girls. All of the children were invited to play Pictionary with us, so we had kids ranging from two years old to nine years old. Everyone seemed to get really into it, and the kids seemed to move closer and closer to the game board. We decided not to keep score during the game because the kids might become too competitive. After we finished playing Pictionary, we took a picture with the entire group, and gave them giant coloring books to keep."

- Madeline H. and Stacey D., Lake Forest Academy, Lake Forest, IL