Chance to Make a Difference in a Child's Life

My name is Monte Simonton and I run the after school program at Middle Way House The Rise.  We serve children between the ages of 3-19 years old who have come from domestic violence, homeless, and poverty situations.  We have several volunteer options and a service learning course that we need more volunteers for.  Each of them are described below.

L100: *** We still have 8 spots left.
Every year we collaborate with a service learning course (CLLC-L100, 20208) to provide the children with a Spring Break Camp.  The class meets Feb 29th, March 7th, and March 21st from 6:00-8:30 p.m. and includes meeting the week of Spring Break from 8:30-5 p.m.  The first two classes the students will get a foundation on the effects of domestic violence on children.  They will learn about Middle Way House and about what we will doing with the children over spring break.  During spring break we will spend Mon-Fri 8:30-5 with the children.  We will go to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, the Exotic Feline Rescue Center,The Indianapolis Zoo, and Wonder Lab.  We will go to a Chemistry Magic show, go swimming, and have live animals brought in by the Humane Society for some educational programs and two animal rescue programs.  It is a really fun week that allows students to make a difference in a child’s life over Spring Break. 

Mentoring:
We currently need 25 men and 10 women to be mentors to the children in our program.  We pair IU students with a child of the same gender for a year commitment as a mentor.  The mentor must spend an average of 3 hours a week with the child, not counting winter, summer, or spring breaks.  Some of our boys have been waiting close to a year to get mentors, because we have not had that many male applicants.  We have a large number of female children who have recently moved and also need mentors.  Mentoring is one of the easiest ways to make a difference in a child’s life.  Just by hanging around them and incorporating them into your life, you can make a major difference in their lives. We ask that the mentor activities be done on the weekend. Please contact Monte Simonton at msimonto@hotmail.com for more information.

Tutoring;
We tutor children between the ages of 4-18 with their homework.  We do tutoring Mon-Fri from 5:30-7:00 p.m.  We need help with tutoring children in all grades.  We could also use help in developing assignments for children to do when they do not have homework that would increase their literacy and math levels.  We are tutoring about 30 children a day and need more volunteers.  We in particular need more tutors on Fridays.  Please contact Monte Simonton at msimonto@hotmail.com for more information.