In 1997, several of our church members founded a non-profit organization called Impact. They wanted to meet some of the needs of inner-city youth from underserved communities by providing free tutoring, teaching students to read at their grade level, and summer academic enrichment camps. While the program started in Oakland by some of our church members at UC Berkeley, it’s been making its way to other cities as well! 

IMPACTing Boston

For the past two months the church has been bringing Impact here to Boston! So what does starting up this new non-profit look like? It starts with looking for a school to partner with. Our volunteers started with looking for Pre-K to 5th grade schools in Boston that are a reasonable driving distance from where our volunteers live and are near low income neighborhoods. We contacted the schools to see if there was any after school program or time where students are free. We eventually got in contact with one of the faculty of the John F. Kennedy school. It is an elementary and middle school in Somerville that teaches Pre-K to 8th grade. We asked the school if it would be possible for us to start an Impact program at the school, to which they agreed! Apparently many of their students wait after school for their parents to get off work to pick them up. The school arranged it to where students whose parents are interested will allow us to visit during after-school hours. 

The Program

For the past seven weeks, a team of us have joined the students once a week after school to put on fun activities with the students based on what they would be learning at their grade level. 

For one of the weeks, students learned about aerodynamics. They were given a short lesson on the different forces that allow planes to travel in the air such as thrust and drag. After the students learned about these forces they were tasked in creating different types of paper airplanes. If their airplane wasn’t flying correctly, we would work with the students to figure out what needed to be improved so that it could fly better.

Another week, we gave a quick lesson on buoyancy and had them use different art materials to construct a boat that would be able to float in a tub of water. To really test their limits, we held a competition to see which boat could hold the most amount of gummy bears before sinking.

We also recently put on a small festival for the Pre-K to 5th graders called Fall Fest. We had four booths, each with a fun activity for the students. These included face painting, and classic carnival games like bean bag toss, a wild, wild west shooting game, and knocking down bottles with a ball. Students were able to win either candy or a prize. We even had one competition where students would place their guess on how many ping pong balls we had in a large glass jar. Overall, the students seemed to have a great time. I enjoyed seeing them run around showing off their stickers and prizes and getting so excited when they got their bean bags into their buckets.

How I’ve been Impacted

When I first started volunteering with Impact, I expected the students to just be loud, rowdy and fun kids that would do anything for a piece of candy. Although somewhat true, I also noticed that these students struggle with the same character issues and sins that adults like myself struggle with. For example, I saw how comparison is something that starts young and not only affects how we view ourselves but also others. Even at their age it can lead to pride, arrogance, and a sense of inadequacy. One memorable interaction with a student was when he had trouble with one of the projects and got really upset with himself as feelings of insecurity came up, saying he wasn’t good enough. There were other moments where students even had issues working together as a team to build their projects. I remember one group activity where the students needed to build a tall structure to apply what they learned in their engineering course about buildings and having a strong foundation. They were tasked with building a structure that was both tall and stable enough to hold a soda can. Two of the students didn’t feel like cooperating in a group so they decided to just work on the group activity on their own! Another student didn’t know who to join so that student just started adding decorations to their structure. Multiple times I had to encourage them to work as a group and to try to contribute to one single structure. During these very human moments of conflict and figuring out how to relate with each other, we would talk with them to encourage and instruct them on how they should behave or view themselves and others.  

Coming into Impact I fully expected to just be a tutor. Based on my previous experience working with elementary school students, I expected that I would be teaching these students how to solve math problems, hold pens/pencils or help them with their homework. What I didn’t expect was that I would be teaching these students about how to work with other people or how to have grit when things get tough. Instead of being a teaching assistant I was more of a mentor teaching them skills that they would need not just in the classroom but for the rest of their lives. 

We are truly making an impact here!