Hi! I'm Julia, new member and excited to join you all in February! I'm new to Baltimore, so I'm excited to get out and meet some folks while having good, passionate conversation!

I know that it's horrible etiquette to make your first post on a group's message board one that is asking for help, but I'm going to have to ask for your forgiveness, as this is a fairly urgent matter.

I'm working to find volunteers for a nonprofit that is working in a school here in Baltimore (for the remainder of the semester - if the district feels it is successful, we'll be expanding to five more schools next year). What we do is bring members of the communities we operate in into reading centers that we set up in the schools to work one on one with students who have been identified by their teachers as a half - two and a half YEARS behind in their literacy skills. We have a few fifth graders in the program who are reading at a third grade level, and let me tell you - it's heartbreaking to see them struggle.

I was just shown the waiting list for the program and am in overdrive trying to find volunteers. It turns out there are about 80 kids who are waiting for me to find them a tutor! No pressure, right?

So, if you, or anyone in your group, is interested in being a tutor (and have 45 minutes a week to spare), please feel free to email me (jboyer@readingpartners.org) or call me at 410-585-7600. If you want to find more information about our program (and I totally understand if you do - there are a ton of scams out there today), you can head to www.readingpartners.org and check up on our success in other cities around the country. We just moved into our Baltimore school in January, so there isn't much there about our program here. Like I said, I'm always available to answer questions.

Julia