NeighborScapes

I grew up with one foot squarely in the middle class, in a one-floor, three bedroom house in a nice subdivision, and the other in a more run-down, lower middle class, with blood memories of last generation’s seven siblings and two parents living in three bedrooms and an attic. My parents were both the first siblings of the first generation of their families to go to college, and because they paid for it themselves, they have immense pride in this achievement. They’ve set me up to do the same- to work my way up to a progressively higher class, better level of college, greater things.

They are unhappy that I spend my Tuesdays and Thursdays in a neighborhood that a NeighborScapes intern from a top-tier college describes as “like the more run-down parts of India,” teaching basic reading, math and science to high school drop outs.

Four years ago, I would have agreed with them. I didn’t have the patience to teach a sixteen-year-old how to do her multiplication tables, starting with twos, and grilling her on twos until she gets them right 100% of the time, before progressing to threes. Not with my AP Calculus BC scores and my moonlighting at the University of Chicago’s academic lectures, listening to and understanding the basics of some more complicated theorems. I didn’t have the patience to review low-level spelling and grammar, with a degree, with Honors, in English at such a good school. I want to go chase my American Dream.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that the school system, the after-school curricula, and society in general are failing our kids. There was a way, that a sixteen year old could get to sophomore year of high school, without knowing basic multiplication, or an eighteen year old could almost graduate high school without knowing that the moon rotates as it revolves around the earth, which in turn rotates as it revolves around the sun. It’s alien to me, since I grew up with the Magic School Bus, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and an appetite for books- it seems like a human right that our youth should get a rudimentary education, and a social responsibility that they do this before we release them to the work force.

I’m tutoring these kids, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’m spending time with them and getting invested in their well-being. And I’m promising them, twice a week, that when summer work comes along, I’ll let them know. But I haven’t heard back from the state of IL about youth and summer jobs, and I’m starting to worry. Whatever factors failed these kids up until now, will still be happening, and there’s only so much that two hours of volunteering a week can do for them. They need sustained, respectful, engaging programming. And while I’m a rockstar, I can’t do that for them alone.

This is where I need your help.

I need you to volunteer, to help tutor more kids or do so more regularly. Call (877) 214-6630 *2 to schedule with me. And I need to you to give, whatever you can, at http://www.neighborscapes.org/support-our-work/. Every seven dollars you spend, keeps an at-risk teenager in a positive, affirming, constructive program for another hour, gaining valuable work experience and catching up on the education they’ll need as adults.

My parents taught me to use my mind and my determination to build a better world for myself. This is how I’m doing it- and I hope you’ll join me.

Thank you.

Chris Furuya is the program coordinator for NeighborScapes, a volunteering, community organizing, and civic leadership nonprofit located in the South suburbs of Chicago. Her twitter handle is earthangelNS.