Name: Tia Walker
From: Clearwater, Florida
Votes: 0
I have chosen to volunteer at my local library to help children learn to read. Officially, I have
volunteered 20 hours a year for the last two years but I have been
helping our director of youth development, Ms. Julie, for many years
prior. My responsibilities are to plan for upcoming events, keep
track of reading statistics, shelve books, and teach chess. My
biggest challenge is to work with children that are not interested in
reading, however, it is very satisfying to change their minds by
showing them what reading can do for them in the future. I have
learned from my volunteer position the importance of literature in a
child’s life. My career goal is to be an actuary, so I enjoy
working with numbers and writing weekly reports for the library about
their youth reading statistics. I see my volunteering as “forward
looking” by teaching children lifelong skills that they can take
with them anywhere. I seek to foster a world where reading is looked
upon with delight by young children. The teen volunteers that helped
me learn to read ten years ago at this very library have made a big
impact on the way I view books today. While many of my classmates
groan at the mention of a new reading assignment, I enjoy the
challenge of analyzing literature due to my fond memories of the fun
I had with books when I was younger. I hope that I can serve as a
role model for the children I teach, so that they can remember me ten
years from now and perhaps continue the cycle by volunteering for the
library when they are in high school. I truly believe that reading
helps facilitate the learning process of children, and I am proud to
say that I volunteer at my local library.
