Our mission is to engage children in activities and behaviors that empower them to promote their own success in school and life. We seek to provide nurturing “soil” for them to grow in.

The majority of the children we serve are from low-income and/or immigrant urban families whose resources for supporting their social/academic development. Over 50% of these children are mot meeting the reading and math standards at grade-level expectations. They desire to produce more “colorful blossoms”! Each child achieves when she/he receives individual nurturing and attention; has his/her own “gardener.”

Our “gardeners” are caring, committed volunteers from the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul metro community. We want to increase our capacity to attract more volunteer mentor/tutors to encourage the positive growth of these children. Our mentor/tutors help them understand and complete their homework, engage them in activities that build skills and confidence in reading and math, and enjoy recreational activities like kick bass and foosball when the work is done.

We seek as well to cultivate each family’s ability to help their children succeed. We want to increase our capacity to do so effectively.

Our VISTA member will work with us to build the infrastructure needed to attract, recruit, train and supervise an adequate number of competent, conscientious, consistent, caring volunteers to serve the children who are enrolling in our programs, AND to serve more children than we have been able to serve.

Responsibilities:

• Find new and more compatible sources for recruiting volunteers; corporations, clubs, churches, colleges, etc.
• Find and engage people and resources to help market our volunteer opportunities
• Find and engage people and resources to help develop an effective program to train our volunteers
• Develop infrastructure that will guide and instruct the recruitment and training programs over time
• Help recruit, train and supervise volunteers to gain a fuller understanding of the needs of the program, the children and the volunteer mentor/tutors

Contact:

Maurie Clipperton, Program Manager for Elementary Educational Enrichment

612-872-2773

maurie.clipperton@ppl-inc.org

For more information and to apply to this program, please click here