DREAM BIG 2012

Between 2009 and 2012, I served as a volunteer tutor for elementary students through Catholic Community Services’ Youth Tutoring Program (YTP).  During my first two years of the program, on one evening each week, I would meet with the same students with whom I was initially paired to help them with their homework in Math, Social Studies, Reading Comprehension, and Language Arts.  

This work has been extremely rewarding and enjoyable as I was able to develop a meaningful, interpersonal relationship with my students throughout the course of the academic year, and during the summer months when Reading Comprehension is the primary focus for the students.  Witnessing the academic progress of my students throughout the year was so remarkable and gratifying to me.

Unfortunately, my schedule could not allow me to volunteer for the 2011-2012 academic year.  However, because YTP has had such a profound impact on me during my years in Seattle, I did not want to be completely disconnected from the program.  I suggested to the YTP coordinators that if they should ever have a need for photographic services, they should not hesitate to contact me.

To my great delight, YTP did contact me in February 2012 to request photography in preparation for their annual fundraiser, “Dream Big”. For this project, I had the opportunity to visit and photograph the tutoring sessions at each of YTP’s tutoring centers in Seattle!  One of the key objectives was to capture the interaction between the tutors and students, and also showcase the key theme of learning.

These are only a few of the images that I took, some of which were enlarged and presented at the “Dream Big” annual fundraiser on March 16, 2012.

It was such a pleasure to participate and offer my services, completely pro bono, to this program which has had such a positive impact on the students, tutors, and myself.

Although not featured here, photographs were also taken for another phenomenal initiative -- the Groundwork Project -- which aims to help teenagers and young adults transition from homelessness to being independently stable via a network of local, community resources and support systems.  It’s the first such program of its kind in the United States whose core mission is to eradicate youth homelessness, and it has proven to be effective and successful!

To learn more about Catholic Community Services of Western Washington tutoring program, please click here.