Boston Partners in Education has been around since 1966, proving adult tutor volunteers for Boston Public School students. Lots of things have changed, but this is a quick rundown of Boston Partners in Education.
The Programs
School Volunteer Program (SVP) is the biggest program that allows teachers to request a volunteer for any subject, any grade level, and at any school. I don't have the exact numbers but I think there were volunteers in upwards of 60 schools in the district. This program is undergoing some big changes to help connect the volunteers to each other, and to Boston Partners. Since it is such a big program, it's tough to get all the information we need about the students, teachers, and how the volunteers are impacting the students.
Power Lunch is a corporate volunteer program that has sponsorship funding from the partner corporations. Power Lunch is a one on one volunteer program that targets 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. The program is intended to provide consistent adult role models and to help students to enjoy reading at an early age. Volunteers take an hour of their week to read to their matched student, and if they're too busy to do every week, they can do every other week with another volunteer. Power Lunch runs in about 10 schools across the district and partners with over 20 companies.
Math Rules! is an academic math mentoring program for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. It runs in nine schools and may expand to 2nd grade math in the future. Volunteers also take an hour of their week to work with a small group of students on their daily math work. While there are many other programs and after school programs targeting math, Math Rules! is one of the only in-school math tutoring programs in the Boston area. See my previous post for more information and opinions.
Big Cheese Reads or Big Cheese is a "mentoring moment" program where Big Cheeses -people who have gotten far in life and done lots of great things, examples are Mayor Menino, Magic Johnson, and Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops - come into a middle school classroom and read an excerpt to the students. Excerpts show considerable courage, or personal growth, and are meant to show students that no matter your background, you can succeed and do great things. Big Cheese Readers then talk about their personal journey to success and let students ask questions. Big Cheese Readers donate funding to Boston Partners through sponsorship.
Events
Boston Partners has a few major events that we hold throughout the year. This is what I got to be involved in this past year.
The Big Cheese Reads Gala and Silent Auction is our biggest fundraising night and the biggest event for Boston Partners. We typically have the Gala in April and planning starts the day after the Gala ends. It's a big deal and everyone in the office helps out and has jobs for the night. Auction items are collected throughout the year, many Boston Partners' supporters, big donors, Big Cheeses, and Boston Public School teachers, principals and staff are invited. The Gala takes a lot of planning and execution depends on everyone. Even with the work, I had a lot of fun that night talking to donors and supporters of Boston Partners. We do a lot of the background work, so I didn't get to see the program itself, but it was still a good time.
Boston Partners was lucky to get three years of charity numbers to run in the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon is a one of the biggest marathons in the country. Typically only qualified runners (runners who have run other marathons in a set amount of time) are allowed to run, but charity teams get 15 numbers to run. They have to raise a certain amount for the charity organization, but the Boston Marathon Charity team did a spectacular job of fundraising! I was on the selection committee for runners and we had to look at different aspects of running capacity, team training commitment, and fundraising abilities. This year, we had quite a few team members who were current staff or used to work for Boston Partners. We also selected a few people who had been involved with Boston Partners in the past. I think it helped the team spirit because I got to hear a lot about training and the runs everyone had to do. I am not a runner, but it was certainly impressive that these individuals banded to train together. On top of that, they raised incredible amounts of money for Boston Partners! Ask the staff, this year's Marathon team was a big deal.
The Volunteer Recognition Event is a thank you night to all our volunteers. We honor special volunteers, schools, and partners for their dedication to Boston Partners in Education and the work that we all do together. This year, we had it at the Museum of Science and had tasty food, a short thank you program, and a parting tshirt gift for our volunteers.
In summation, Boston Partners in Education gave me really awesome opportunities to see how a nonprofit works, how their events work, and how the programs work together to support as many Boston Public students as we can.
