Dear Friends from Philadelphia Quarter,

We are writing to see if you have one morning a week to read with children at our partner elementary school near Historic Fair Hill in Fairhill, North Philadelphia.

Five of us from three Quaker Meetings go together each Thursday morning by carpool and bus.

We sit with one child at a time and read aloud or listen to the child read to us.  The children are lovely, eager, happy to have an adult’s attention and encouragement for 20 minutes. 

The teachers are grateful to have us and say this personal attention is helping the children learn.  The kindergarten classes have 27 children, only a few of whom had preschool experience, an aide for less than an hour a morning, and a mandated curriculum that drills letters and numbers for the tests. Most do not have a fluent English reader at home to help. They need kind, interested, English speaking adults to volunteer to help.

If you are able to do this one morning a week, you will feel as richly rewarded as we do. You will be helping our city children whose school have had big budget cuts.

Let us know if you want to visit or talk this over. You’ll need to get your two clearances from the state. School goes through June and we plan to continue with some children over the summer, so you still have plenty of time this year. 

We hope you will join us,

Jean Warrington, Mary Anne Hunter, Tom Grabe, Emilie Harting, Jean Hurd,  Fair Hill Reading Buddies

To join the team, contact: info@historicfairhill.org or Jeanwarrington@verizon.net