By Abigail Bender
While many community service opportunities at the University of Maryland assist fellow university students, some provide mentorship to children off campus. One of these mentorship programs is the CARing Kids Project, or CARing, where student volunteers assist children in Langley Park, Maryland, with improving their educational and interpersonal skills.
CARing meets on Thursdays from 3-5:30 p.m. at the Hope Lutheran Church. The program is run through The Humble Walk, a Lutheran ministry on campus. According to Pastor Ray Ranker, the Lutheran chaplain at UMD, CARing volunteers are paired with a child for the semester.
“I would say that they’re getting all these different skills, including the social-emotional connections,” Ranker said. “But we have reading every day, every time we have the program. There’s always a time for reading with their buddy, and so they’re getting practice with that.”
Many activities in the program are hands-on, often encouraging children to complete math problems and readings using a point system, Ranker said. In past semesters, the children have visited places like the dormitory to witness university life. After the visit, the children wrote about how they would design their dorm room, Ranker said.
“It’s interactive,” Ranker said. “There are things that they are getting, they’re working on writing skills, but we’re not like sit down at the table. I would say they’re getting all of those skills, but in kind of like fun ways.”
The program started in 1994 after Langley Park Elementary School wanted to help children receive guidance from university students, Ranker said. All the children in CARing live around Langley Park, many living in the same apartment complex. The children are transported to the church and back home.
The program includes 20 students in second through fifth grade, chosen by La Sagrada Familia’s Ministry in Langley Park, based on their home and school life, Ranker said.
According to the Humble Walk Kids website, “The children come from a multi-cultural community.” Many of the students would be the first person in their family to attend college, said Ranker.
“So one of our goals is that they see and experience what college is like,” Ranker said.
Since each student volunteer is paired with a child for the semester, it creates a bond with their buddy, Ranker said.
“I mean, kind of the core of it is just to see them as an individual person and to give them one-on-one attention, which really, we’re communicating that we care about them, they’re loved,” Ranker said.
Many volunteers have been with the same buddy for multiple semesters. Ashlyn Wu, a junior computer science major, has been paired with her buddy since the fall of her freshman year.
“I think something I’ve always really loved about the program is because you’re paired with a buddy every semester, like you get to see their growth from the beginning of the semester to the end,” Wu said.
Wu said she joined CARing after attending the First Look Fair. She appreciates how the program brings volunteers and children together.
“It’s just like a really great sense of community that I get from being here, and it’s such a relief too. It’s kind of like a really fun thing to do outside of school,” Wu said.
Wu said CARing has also helped with her leadership capabilities.
“I think being a leader at CARing sort of helped me become very confident in the decisions that I was making, and be very sure of myself,” she said.
Livia Mair, a senior communications major and the current student leader for CARing, said volunteering with CARing has improved her communication skills.
“It’s definitely made me a lot more open to speaking to a big group of people and talking to kids can be really hard,” Mair said. “Like harder than adults sometimes.”
Through CARing, the children are improving their academics, behavioral and social skills, while volunteers further their mentorship skills.
“It’s really about creating a bond and helping these kids be ready for the real world,” Mair said.
Caption: Children participating in an activity during the CARing Kids Project at the Hope Lutheran Church on Sept. 17. Photo by Duncan Holditch.