HWS Students Active in City Year
28 December 2012 HWS Students Active in City Year
Its December, but Lindsay Webster 13 is readying herself for her first job after HWS. Selected to join the City Year program, Webster is enthusiastically looking forward to serving with a team of City Year corps members in Columbus, Ohio, beginning in summer 2013.
Webster, an English major and active member of the campus community, will join 11 other HWS alumni and alumnae who currently serve in AmeriCorps City Year communities throughout the United States. Websters selection is an example of the continued connection between the Colleges and the program.
City Year is a nonprofit organization that strives to improve classroom environments and encourage the educational advancement of youth by providing community-based projects. Those who serve in City Year help encourage third- to ninth-grade students to stay in school and remain on course toward high school graduation.
Webster, who has participated in the America Reads program on campus, says her experiences at HWS will be a great foundation for her next step.
Im excited to be a mentor, but Im also extremely excited about being part of a team of individuals who share my interests, have similar goals, and see the importance of aligning together in order to change the world, Webster says.
Those from HWS who are involved in City Year demonstrate leadership as young professionalsby providing academic support and encouragement to the students of the programs respective communities.
Currently, there are 11 individuals from HWS who are actively serving in the 2012/2013 City Year program. They are: Jess McCue 12 (San Jose), Elizabeth Perry 12 (New York), Lauren Schwarzenberg 12 (Philadelphia), Chad Zimmerman 12 (Los Angeles), Amaury Ramirez 12 (New York), Karina Polanco 11 (Boston), Amy Waddell 12 (Rhode Island), Kyle Sherwood 12 (Los Angeles), Rashid Perkins 12(New York), Mary Jameson 12 (Baton Rouge), and Katherine Cushing 12 (Jacksonville).
Ramirez, who currently serves in New York, says the mentoring provided by City Yearteams is a valuable contribution to the lives of students.
Just last week, I worked with two third-graders who were struggling with subtracting numbers that have multiple integers, Ramirez says. After working with them for three days they were able to answer every subtraction question successfully.
City Year emphasizes full engagement with the students so as to keep student dropout levels low and to inspire them to love learning. City Year aims to cultivate intellectual thirst.
About 90 percent of all students tutored by City Year improved their raw literacy scores, which is a testament to theorganizations dedicationto helping students with their educational pursuits.
According to the City Year website, the organizations Long-Term Impact goal is to ensure 80 percent of the students in the schools City Year serves reach 10th grade on track and on time, and to serve the majority of at-risk students in the locations where City Year serves.
For more information, visit the City Year website: http://www.cityyear.org/CityYear/Home_New_2011/Home_A_2011.aspx