Whittier Elementary School

Senior Volunteers

DOUG JOHNSON: Many retired Americans seek volunteer work as a useful way to spend their time. Older citizens have knowledge, experience and skills that can fill many needs. Shirley Griffith tells about some of these volunteers and the help they provide.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Chaniya Anderson is a second grader at Whittier Elementary School in Washington. She needs help in math and reading. She gets help in those subjects from Shirley Mickel, a sixty-two-year- old-volunteer.

SHIRLEY MICKEL: “Very good, excellent. Excellent Chaniya.”

CHANIYA ANDERSON: “I enjoy math.” Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad R61 Akku, volunteers at a Washington elementary school twice a week

Shirley Mickel is retired from the federal government. She tutors at Whittier two times a week. So does volunteer Gloria Pendelton, a former computer systems programmer. She is sixty-five.

GLORIA PENDELTON: “I feel much better. I feel that I am learning. So I am constantly trying to learn along with the children.”

Both women are members of Experience Corps. It is a nationwide program that connects people over age fifty-five with elementary school students from low-income families. About two thousand volunteers help students in twenty-three cities across the country.

Kathleen Kaye has been an Experience Corps volunteer for more than three years.

KATHLEEN KAYE: “What I have seen is a lot of kids really take off because they do have the one-on-one attention and they are up to grade level, if not beyond, as a result of having been in the program.”

But she says she gets back more than she gives. Irving Wilson, a volunteer for more than seven years, says he does also.

IRVING WILSON: “I get a lot of benefits from being in this program. I keep my mind active and coming to school three times a week, and walking up and down the steps, that kept me physically able.”

But volunteering is not just good for the brain and body. Eighty-six-year-old Mary Holt finds it good for her soul.

REPORTER: “Why do you like to volunteer?” Akku Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad R60 : “It gives me peace. Happiness. And knowing that I’m helping other people.”

Mary Holt has been an active volunteer for the last thirty years. She volunteers through her church in Arlington, Virginia. She makes meals for the homeless. She helps with the church’s newsletter and puts together its Sunday service papers.

Seventy-two-year-old Glenn Wood of Missoula, Montana says volunteer work keeps him connected. He works in the federal government’s Senior Corps program. Almost five hundred thousand volunteers work in thousands of American communities.

Glenn Wood likes to do more than just one job. He serves as a guide for special exhibits at the University of Montana and for special events at the Missoula Art Museum. He also helps judge the yearly ninth grade science fair. And he works with a community conflict resolution group to lower crime and violence in the city.

Finally, he works in the Missoula visitor center during tourist season. He says the payback is simple. When you can help someone new in town solve a problem, you feel good about it.

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Vocational Education

Akku Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad T61 Akku : This week’s listener question comes from China. Feng Tianqiang wants to know more about vocational education in the United States.

There is a long history of vocational education in this country. Dating back to colonial times, the government has supported programs to train skilled workers. It started out as a way to teach students to farm and work in industries. But as the American economy grew, so too has vocational training.

Today, vocational education is usually called career and technical education, or CTE.

Students in high schools and trade schools can earn degrees in many areas.