School on Wheels delivers tutoring – and hope – for homeless students – By Magda Hernandez (CS Monitor) / July 19, 2022
The little girl was 6 years old, and life hadn’t been kind to her.
When Catherine Meek walked into a homeless shelter for their tutoring session, she found the child hiding under a desk.
No questions asked, the volunteer joined her on the floor and began reading to her. For an hour a week, the session would allow the girl to be just a kid, getting the assistance she needed, and for at least a moment forgetting about the circumstances that put the girl educationally behind by about a grade.
The space remained their meeting spot for six sessions until, one day, Ms. Meek walked in to find the girl sitting at the desk waiting for her.
“I had, I remember, the biggest smile on my face, and she did too,” Ms. Meek says. “I think even at that young, vulnerable age she understood that something had changed, that there was a set level of trust, that she could trust me.”
