The volunteer-supported Homework Help Club provides a safe, supportive environment for educational improvement for three afternoons a week throughout the school year, with adult volunteers drawn primarily from Temple Emunah in Lexington. During the Tufts academic year, the program expands to five days a week with the help of volunteers from the University. In addition to their direct help, our adult and student volunteers bring a message of caring and support for our children and establish productive mentoring relationships.

Groups of volunteers – including two members of the Welcome Project Board of Directors – meet with children with whom they have built ongoing relationships. The volunteers work with the children on all school subjects, providing assistance their parents cannot offer because of limited proficiency in English and work commitments.

The service that we provide children is deeply appreciated by their families, and this, in turn, builds the trust that enables us to invite them into adult literacy and citizenship classes and women’s support groups. Increased funding will enable us to expand the Homework Help Club to five days a week on a regular basis, offer more extensive support to parents in relation to their children’s school work, and increase the number of volunteers. In turn, a more effective Homework Help Club will directly effect the current dropout rate which stands at 183% of the state average and an MCAS failure rate (in 10th grade) of 147% of the state average in English and 142% in Mathematics.

Massachusetts Parent Involvement Program
This project of the Department of Education is designed to bring the parents in low-income and immigrant families into a closer involvement with the public schools. The Welcome Project has agreed to coordinate and plan a series of evening presentations by members of the Somerville School Department’s ESOL science staff. Four evenings are planned, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. Although outreach for these events will cover Somerville at large, we intend to strongly recruit from within the parent body living at the Mystic Development.

Educational advocacy work in the Somerville Public Schools
This is conducted on a case-by-case basis as needed by tenant parents. One of our achievements in 2001 was the beginning of native language testing for children with suspected learning disabilities in the public school that serves the largest number of Mystic Development children. The Executive Director is a member of Somerville United Against Racism and is the chairperson of a subcommittee that is focusing on educational issues. He also served as the moderator for a youth and adult Speak Out on Racism held at the Somerville High School.