UMBC’s Shriver Center has partnered with College Gardens for 15 years to offer children in Southwest Baltimore tutoring, mentorship and supervised activities after school. This week, WYPR highlighted the hard work of UMBC student volunteers in a news feature on the program, which parents say “provides a safe, academic haven for their children.”
Service-learning intern Brittany Rush ’12, GES, has worked with College Gardens for two years. She tells WYPR’s Gwendolyn Glenn that she came into the program aware of negative stereotypes of Baltimore city youth, but she quickly found that “these kids all do care about their futures and the future of their peers.”
A current University of Baltimore student who participated in the program as a child reflects that it was UMBC student mentors who inspired her to see college as a a real possibility for her life: “I was excited for it because I saw the UMBC kids and I was like, ‘I can’t wait to go to college. I can’t wait until I’m old enough.’”
Tags: CAHSS, ShriverCenter