metro »
After-
School
Tutoring
Stacy Gittleman | Contributing Writer
I
f you attended elementary school in
Detroit’s Northwest neighborhood, the
school bell is still ringing for you, but
this time, to return as a volunteer.
Three years after launching a success-
ful afterschool tutoring and mentoring
program at the Schulze Elementary Middle
School at 10700 Santa Maria St., Project
Healthy Community (PHC) will duplicate its
efforts by starting a pilot program at Bagley
Elementary School in January.
The organization is now seeking Bagley
alumni to come back to the old neighbor-
hood and help improve reading and math
literacy skills for the school’s most academi-
cally challenged children by becoming men-
tors and volunteers.
The program will begin as a pilot with
12-15 students and will run four days a
week from 3:45-6 p.m. PHC will host an
open house for interested volunteers on
Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Bagley.
Project Healthy Community, an inter-
community, interracial and interfaith-based
nonprofit, was formed in 2012 to benefit
the Northwest Detroit area. It is housed in
the Northwest Activities Center (NWAC)
in Detroit (a former Jewish Community
Center).
PHC was launched through a collabora-
tion between Temple Israel’s Rabbi Josh
Bennett and Dr. Melvyn Rubenfire, a former
chairman of medicine at Sinai Hospital of
Detroit. Each felt Temple Israel and others in
the Jewish community could help Detroit by
partnering with the NWAC to develop pro-
grams that would improve food availability,
nutrition, education and health.
Bennett and Rubenfire formed part-
nerships with already-existing charitable
organizations in the neighborhood, such as
14 December 8 • 2016
Rudy Thomas
Project Healthy Community
seeks alumni volunteers
for program at Bagley
Elementary.
Karen Rubenfire brings in the harvest at the Project Healthy Community garden this fall.
have come to work with the children. So far,
the PHC tutoring initiatives have attracted
the attention of several notable alumni such
as recently retired WDIV-TV newscaster
Carmen Harlan.
It costs PHC $1,200 per student
NEW PHC DIRECTOR
to run the program, said Karen
PHC recently hired Amina Iqbal
Rubenfire, LMSW, director of pro-
as executive director. As the orga-
gramming and community outreach
nization grows, Iqbal is looking to
for PHC. Funding comes from indi-
hire a director to oversee the two
vidual private donations. Families
afterschool centers. When seeking
are also charged $5 per week for
volunteers, she says consistency is
their child to participate.
key.
“Getting some financial buy-in
Amina Iqbal
“It is important we find com-
from the parents helps ensure par-
mitted volunteers to come out and
ents are committed to the program
mentor these children,” said Iqbal, who holds and their child’s success,” Rubenfire said.
degrees in child development and education.
“For many of these kids, the worst time
“They need to know that each week they can of the day is when that dismissal bell rings.
see the same familiar faces at the afterschool
There are no afterschool activities for them
center. When trust builds between the stu-
and little to no structure at home. In the
dent and the volunteer, that is when we see
three years since the afterschool program at
the child progress and succeed.”
Schulze has been in place, teachers and par-
In 2013, the Rubenfire family began to
ents have seen a change for the better in the
concentrate their efforts in creating after-
children’s behavior and work ethic. Parents
school tutoring programs at the elementary
say their kids are getting their homework
school level. For the past three years, PHC
done We hope to duplicate this success at
has run a program at Schulze where 30
Bagley.”
students in grades K-5 designated by their
teachers to be the most academically vulner- NEED IS GREAT
Of the total student body of 387 children at
able meet with volunteer tutors four after-
Bagley, 253 are recognized as economically
noons a week.
disadvantaged and 51 have learning dis-
Volunteers — some with backgrounds in
abilities, according to a 2015-2016 profile
education, social work or therapy — work
closely with teachers to instill in the children report from Detroit Public Schools. In some
good study habits and improve their reading areas of testing, none of the students met
state standards of performance in English
and math skills. After finishing their home-
language arts, math or social studies, accord-
work, children are provided with dinner
ing to Michigan Student Test of Educational
before heading home.
Progress assessment results.
PHC has also developed a close partner-
But good things are under way, according
ship with Marygrove College, where students
the NWAC and Hartford Memorial Baptist
Church, to create initiatives such as coat and
school uniform drives, the Foundations for
Understanding Nutrition (FUN) pantry and
the Blessings in a Backpack program.
to alumni. Classrooms are stocked with new
books that challenge the children at various
reading levels. Its classrooms have been reno-
vated, and it has a staff of dedicated teachers
and administrators. The school has a new
principal who recognizes the positive impact
an afterschool program can provide to the
school’s most vulnerable students.
Gary Alpert, 71, of West Bloomfield, who
has been tutoring at Bagley over the last few
years, vividly recalls his elementary school
days when he was a student there in the
1950s.
“I have a lot of tranquil memories of my
years at Bagley,” he said. “It was like the TV
show Leave it to Beaver. No one was afraid
to walk in the neighborhood, and everyone
walked home for lunch. I had attentive teach-
ers and this resulted in many successful
alumni.”
Alpert went on to teach business at
McKenzie High School from 1967 to 1998.
In 2013, he reconnected with other Bagley
alumni at their 50th Mumford High School
reunion. They raised some money and
volunteered sporadically with children at
Bagley, but a formal tutoring or mentor-
ing afterschool program never got off the
ground.
“The kids attending this school today
deserve to have the same learning environ-
ment we had,” Alpert said. “We are getting
a little older now, and it would be great if
younger alumni could come back and men-
tor these children.”
*
The Project Healthy Community volunteer open house
will be from 3-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 14, at Bagley
School, 8100 Curtis St., Detroit. For details, visit www.
projecthealthycommunity.org/volunteer or call (248)
892-4585.