By Jeff, Outreach Worker in Willowtree
The start of the school year is always kind of a funny time. Students are settling back in to school, and getting used to being at program, and testing by experimentation if the same rules still exist at program. The other thing that happens at the start of each school year is that some students move up to a new age group. This year we have a lot of kids move up from the Grade 1-4 KIC program last year to the Grade 5-8 EPIC tutoring program this year. The Grade 5 students have been particularly pleased that EPIC tutoring includes a full meal each week (thank you to long-time volunteer, Steve).
One of the things that I am excited about this year is for the Grade 5 students to have the opportunity to get to know one of our volunteers at EPIC. The one-on-one volunteer to student ratio helps build trust through consistency and build more confidence in some of the areas that they may struggle with at school and in their personal lives. A number of our students and volunteers at EPIC end up working together for multiple years. We are praying that the Grade 5 students and volunteers that work with them would be able to experience growth in relationship together and recognize God's presence in that!