Brandon Bell
Contributing Writer
Houses on campus are required to complete service projects. One group on campus, however, seems to have truly found a way to both give back to the Wooster community and gain something personal from the experience.
The eight sophomores of Stadium House — each of them living in a campus house for the first time — have arranged to volunteer with two education programs in Wooster: A.B.L.E., Adult Basic & Literacy Education, and ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages.
The housemates in both programs help directly tutor members of the Wooster community. Those volunteering with A.B.L.E. work with adults who did not complete their high school diploma.
Working one-on-one, the housemates help tutor adults studying for their GED, a test of high-school level skills in several subjects. Stadium House members mostly help with math and social studies.
Meanwhile those volunteering with ESOL work with people of all ages who are non-native English speakers and are trying to improve their reading, writing and speaking skills.
Even if the housemates are working on two different education programs, they seem united by a common purpose and goal.
“We want to do everything we can to ensure that the people we work with do learn, alongside their inherent sense of self-betterment,” said Nick Hodges ’19, one of the members of Stadium House. “We all enjoy the idea of tutoring those in need [and] giving back to the community at large.”
Their own experience as a house also seemed to reinforce their purpose in volunteering in the community.
“Amongst our own group of housemates, we have a slight language barrier,” he said. “So we figured we would be a good match with […] breaching the language barrier in the community as a whole.”
The A.B.L.E. and ESOL programs in Wayne County are offered by the Wayne County Schools Career Center, which was founded in 1969 as the Wayne County Joint Vocational School. Classes in both programs are primarily located at the Wooster Learning Center in Central Christian Church, but the Career Center maintains programs in public places throughout Wayne County where students of all ages can receive tutoring and educational assistance.
About their own experience tutoring each student, the tutors of Stadium House have seen improvement in the people they tutor.
“Working with them so far this year, we have seen a great sense of self-motivation in each and every student,” Hodges said.
Their work helping members of the community achieve their educational goals also allows them to bring something back to campus.
In addition to skills tutoring others, their volunteer work also compliments how Hodges characterized the members of Stadium House.
“Our house group is a bunch of fun, ambitious and determined guys,” he said. “[We’re] motivated to give back to the Wooster community through the field of education.”
The members of Stadium House plan to continue living in a house in the future and also plan to continue volunteering in similar programs.