The District will give the Liberty Lakes Apartment building’s Homework Club, a group that tutors young students, a new community center by the end of the school year.
The club currently tutors children in the apartment building’s community center, but the district is currently renovating the former post office on Surryse Road for the club’s new community center. The club is for children in kindergarten through eighth grade and currently has volunteers from NHS, but is open to any responsible high school student to volunteer, Susan Kostner, club sponsor and social worker, said.
LZHS National Honors Society (NHS) member Miranda Flores, senior, started volunteering at the club her junior year for NHS, and still actively volunteers for the program.
“I first joined because it was an opportunity for [volunteer] hours, and I think that is why most people joined,” Flores said. “But after a while, [the volunteers] got really close to the kids, and start having things like inside jokes.”
Many Liberty Lakes members find the volunteers helpful with their homework.
“I really like having the high school kids here,” Alejandro Ramirez, fourth grader and Liberty Lakes member said. “They are really good at explaining [my homework].”
Ramirez said the tutors helped understand math concepts.
“[The volunteers] have helped me get math,” Ramirez said. “I didn’t really get it before they came.”
The club has about 20 kindergarten through eighth graders students, five volunteers, and two social workers each meeting, according to Kostner. If all the children arrive to the community center, they can barely fit all of the kids and volunteers, Kostner said.
“The club needs the new community center,” Kostner said. “The one we currently use is too small for all of the kids in the program.”
Kostner plans on having the fourth graders who live in the building and up walk to the new community center located a block from the apartment building. She wants to have the younger kids to stay in the community center in the building, Kostner said.
“I want the younger kids to stay in the apartment building because I don’t want them walking by themselves,” Kostner said. “The older kids [who live at the apartment building] already walk to library so I do not see it becoming an issue.”
While the program primarily offered to NHS members, Kostner is open to having new volunteers.
“We offer the volunteering to NHS because they need volunteer hours, but we are open to any responsible high school student can volunteer,” Kostner said.
The club meets every Monday and Thursday from 3:15pm to 4:30pm and is primarily for kids in the apartment building, but is open to any elementary or middle school student who needs help with his or her homework, according to the Lake Zurich Patch website.