Education

Spreading a Love of Learning

Inspiring Minds have 1,000 tutors in city schools

East Side Monthly Magazine ·

In the ‘60s when Margaret Gardner was a Brown University student, she tutored a young girl to help her get ready for the opening of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School.

In the ‘80s, her own children were students at King.  Now a grandmother, she’s back at the East Side school as a reading tutor.

Gardner says she was looking to volunteer for an organization that made a difference in the lives of children. When a friend mentioned Inspiring Minds, a nonprofit that has been providing volunteer tutors for Providence students since 1963, “it all just came together.”

The oldest education nonprofit in the state, Inspiring Minds was founded on the East Side as Lippitt Hill Tutorial. When the organization expanded its reach to other Providence schools, it became known as Volunteers in Providence Schools (VIPS). A few years ago, its name was changed to Inspiring Minds. 

The students are far more diverse now than they were during her earlier experiences with King, says Gardner.  “I can see the change and it’s fascinating to me,“ she says. “They are all just wonderful children. We can help them; there’s a role to play.”

Her role during her weekly visits is to help three first graders who are struggling to learn how to read – a fitting task for the former college librarian. They are “wonderful, sincere and lively,” she says.

On the other side of the city, volunteer Laura Graham, who spent 30 years in accounting and finance, is tutoring children who are struggling with math. She makes weekly trips to Roger Williams Middle School where she has discovered an answer to an age-old question that puzzled her:  Why do kids hate math?
Students don’t like something they can’t do, she says. “When they get it, they like it.”

Graham, who moved to the East Side about 18 months ago to join her husband Lindsay, Vice President for Academic Finance and Administration at Brown, offers an anecdote to make her point. Assigned to work with a sixth grader, Graham asked him what he’d like to learn. He told her he couldn’t divide.

“When he learned how to do it, he was so excited,” she says. He looked at her and asked, “Who invented math, anyway?”

Successes like that “make me want to do more,” she says.  

She is doing more. In addition to weekly sessions at Roger Williams, Graham is also tutoring high school students at the after-school Tech Center Inspiring Minds runs at its headquarters on Westminster Street.

Volunteer recruitment is a year-around activity for Inspiring Minds, which screens, trains and coordinates the volunteers. There are 1,000 tutors in the city’s schools this year. The goal is to recruit at least 50 more to finish out the current school year.

“I recommend volunteering to anyone who wants to see humanity at its best,” says Mary Frappier, another East Sider who has tutored in teacher Linda Lefedzre’s kindergarten classroom at Young-Woods Elementary for the last five years.

“I hope she’ll stay forever,” says Lefedzre. “The children love her.”

“Every volunteer tutor we provide is making a huge difference in the life of a child,” says Terri Adelman, executive director of the nonprofit for nearly 25 years. “What could be better than doing that?” 274-3240, www.InspiringMindsRI.com

Inspiring Minds, Providence toturs, providence public schools, carol young, east side monthly, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, Margaret Gardner, Laura Graham, Roger Williams Middle School, Mary Frappier, Young-Woods Elementary, Linda Lefedzre, Terri Adelman