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Afterschool

About Afterschool
Afterschool is one of 13 programs run by the Boston University Community Service Center. Volunteers travel to various schools and community centers in the Greater Boston Area to offer creative activities and tutoring for young students. This program allows student volunteers to interact with the Greater Boston community while creating lasting friendships with their peers, as well as the children they work with. Afterschool is one of the CSC’s longest-running programs.

The commitment is one semester long (with the option to continue for the course of the academic year), and training sessions are provided to prepare students before they begin volunteering. The Afterschool Program is a great way to meet other students, acclimate yourself to Boston and do something meaningful and positive for the community.

Previous experience with children is not required to participate in the program, just patience and a positive attitude. The Afterschool Program is academically oriented, so volunteers will spend the majority of their time helping students with homework. Depending on the ages and grade levels of the children, volunteers can expect to be doing everything from math and science to spelling and social studies. Some sites also allot free time for activities and in some cases sports.

The exact nature of the volunteering varies from site to site. Some programs match volunteers with a single child with whom they work on a regular basis for the entire course of the semester, while other programs allow volunteers to work with a number of students each week. Volunteers are given the opportunity to choose which type of program they prefer before being matched to a site. Either way, many volunteers find that they form close relationships with the students they work with, and they often continue to volunteer at the same site for both semesters – some even for several years.

Please click here to download the Afterschool Program brochure.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
Question What is the commitment?
Answer Students volunteer once a week, for three to four hours. Volunteers are required to participate for an entire semester, as the children and sites rely on us to provide them with activities on a regular basis.

Question How do I get to my site?
Answer Students travel to site by public transportation or by using the 15-passenger CSC vans. Students who are willing to drive are trained and certified to drive the vans at the beginning of each semester.

Question Who do I volunteer with?
Answer Volunteers are assigned to a site for a specific day of the week. Students go to site on their assigned day with two or three other volunteers who are BU students. Some sites also have volunteers from other schools and colleges in the Boston area.

Question How old are the children?
Answer The age of the children varies from site to site, but the program as a whole works with children in grades K-12. Volunteers will have the opportunity to choose an age group with which they prefer to work, and the Program Managers will do their best to accommodate their preferences when matching the volunteers with a site.

Question Where can I expect to volunteer?
Answer In the past, the After School program has worked with organizations such as Bird Street Community Center in Dorchester, Jackson Mann Elementary School in Brighton, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC) in Jamaica Plain and the Media and Technology Charter High School (MATCH) in Allston. All sites are monitored by a trained coordinator who will answer questions and orient volunteers to the site.


Contact
For more information on volunteering with Afterschool, please contact:

Ashley Brown and Amy Kim
775 Commonwealth Avenue
Fourth Floor
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: 617-353-4710
Fax: 671-353-9424
Email: after@bu.edu

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Community Service Center | 775 Commonwealth Ave. | Boston, MA 02215 | Phone:617-353-4710