INDIANA UNIVERSITY PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS

COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING Administration Building, Suite 136 355 N. Lansing Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46202-2896 317-274-7711 Fax: 317-274-5457

IUPUI GRADE-SCHOOL TUTORING PROGRAM NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

INDIANAPOLIS - Day in and day out Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman deals with children in trouble. Once a week, however, through the IUPUI Good Friends program, he gets to spend an hour helping a child whose only problem is reading.

IUPUI Good Friends is a children's literacy program that matches K-12 students who need extra help at school with volunteers who provide one-on-one mentoring and tutoring. The program is currently looking for tutors for the coming school year.

Each tutor must make a one-year commitment and is encouraged to spend one hour a week with the student during a school day. Volunteers may choose the grade level and the school they would like to work with.

Last year, when Newman and a fifth-grade student read "Moby Dick," he saw the child begin to develop a love for reading. "It's the look that he gets in his eyes," said Newman. "You can see he's imagining what it's like to be on lookout at the top of the crow's nest. They start to get into the story enough that they start to express the voices the way the characters would."

Newman strongly encourages others to serve as Good Friends volunteers. "This city is known for a lot of things," he said. "It would be nice to be known as a city that uniquely reaches out to children through volunteers more than any other city."

The Good Friends program is sponsored by the IUPUI Office of Alumni Relations and AmeriCorps. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and do not need to be affiliated with IUPUI. For more information about how to volunteer, please contact Heather Lockett at (317) 274-5060 or hrlocket@iupui.edu or log on to http://www.iupui.edu/~alumrels/goodfriends/.

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