Impact to Date

Boettcher, admittedly, was one of our toughest clubs to start - it is organized chaos there, with great programs and leaders, but I think the kids sneak in Pixie Stix or something. It was a little harder to organize the book clubs around the many activities in which the kids participate. They have a remarkable staff, a fantastic art program, a ton of sports, and a devoted learning center. After 6+ months of showing up every week, building relationships with the kids and mostly just proving that we'd be there week after week, no matter what...eager to read, we developed a great group.

This is a center where, yes we read...we sit in our designated room and read - but sometimes not for the full hour. Sometimes we commit to read for the half hour and then we just talk about the books, which drifts into just talking...about our lives, our experiences, our fears, our annoyances (which they have aplently). That's what makes this club special - we could not have kept the kids involved without building those relationships, where they see us (the volunteers as not only leaders, but friends they can trust). It has made their commitment to reading week after week and month after month even stronger.

We genuinely love these kids and they love us. They recently had their youth of year dinner to honor the students' acheivements and everything they do - and they gave the volunteers of BTP (along with many other volunteers) awards and hand-crafted thank you cards. It was an honor.

We currently have 11 kids who've been part of the program since its inception at that club. Again, it's the most committed group of kids you could imagine, all different reading levels, but they have all said they feel more comfortable reading aloud and they've even taken to reading with accents (for our book set in London).

We also have a volunteer who works with a couple of teens who are pursuing advanced literature as they're approaching college and they whip through classics and lofty literature on a weekly basis - it will be a major benefit to them when they hit their post high-school endeavors.

Goal at Boettcher? Keep our kids loving reading and build our following. We've seen younger kids express an interest in joining in when the next book starts. This of course means, we'll need even more volunteers to handle the various age groups, interests, and reading abilities. We also want to expand the interest for the teens at this club.