Spotlight on ASAP Group Volunteering

Germantown Jewish Centre and Henry School

While ASAP works predominantly with individual volunteers, the organization is also proud to work with groups of volunteers who work collectively at a school. One such example is the partnership between members of the Germantown Jewish Centre and the Henry School. Through ASAP, Germantown Jewish Centre developed a program at Henry in which volunteers from the centre come to the library during the school day to read to first, second, and third grade students. The following are experiences of two volunteers from this unique partnership, Gloria Hoffman and Jessica Lember.

Gloria is a member of Germantown Jewish Center, and this is her second year being involved with the reading program at Henry. She lives in the neighborhood, and wanted to get involved at her local school. She was also particularly driven to work at Henry because she knew the school had a library but no librarian, so very few people were using the space or the books. Gloria has been part of the initiative to start bringing students into the library to listen to volunteers from Germantown Jewish Centre read them stories. The goal is to start using the space, begin to catalog the books in the library, and help students discover the potentials of libraries while developing a love for reading. Gloria loves going through the books that are already in the library to find new works to share with her students in addition to bringing in some of her own favorite children’s literature. Gloria also knows that when the teacher and students get excited about books that are read to them in the library, they will bring those ideas and characters into the classroom. Reading volunteers work to find books that reflect what the kids are already learning in class, so connections are being built between this special story time in the library and the overall curriculum for the students.

Jessica is not a member of the Germantown Jewish Centre, but is now a part of their volunteer group at Henry. She saw an article about the program at a local co-op, and wanted to get involved with the program in order support and get to know her local school. Jessica explains that she was an avid reader as a child, and so children’s literature has grown to be very important to her. Between the stories, the imagination, and the beautiful artwork, Jessica knows that reading to students every week is a way to get them passionate about books. Jessica loves to pick out her own books to read to the students because it’s important to her to find stories that will introduce students to a broad range of ideas. Jessica looks to find diverse themes and characters in order to reflect the diverse population of the student body, and to expose them to new ideas altogether. She knows that students love this opportunity to be read to, especially when she runs into students in the neighborhood and they tell her themselves how much they enjoy it.

ASAP knows that there are unique benefits to volunteering as a group or community in the way that Germantown Jewish Centre works at Henry. As Gloria and Jessica explain, these partnerships draw from local support between involved community members and local schools. It also provides a support network among the group of volunteers so they can help each other and work together in collaboration. ASAP is proud of the work Germantown Jewish Centre is doing and happy to see the students and community members coming together around a common passion – reading!