This club is a local mission that meets on Monday afternoons from mid-October through May from 3:30 to 5 p.m.. We provide one-on-one help with homework for about a dozen elementary students.

Our mission is to help children academically, to befriend them, and to convey how much we
value each one. This is our 20th year!

We need tutors – both regulars and substitutes! Regular tutors are able to come most of the 23 Mondays we are together. Substitutes are on-call to fill in when needed.

Here’s the way the program works: A few elementary students come to BPC after school. They have a snack and then settle down to do homework or special work sent by the teacher. If there is time, we play games and do projects.

For some children in Snacks and Backpacks, English is the second language, and they benefit considerably from reading with American adults. We also serve students with no language challenges but who benefit from one-on-one help. Occasionally we tutor children who are from
homeless families, and they bask in the attention of an adult tutor.

This autumn we will start on Monday, October 17. Snacks & Backpacks is an equal opportunity mission for all volunteers: We welcome men and women; young and old; tall and short; artists and non-artists; the math-savvy or math-challenged, and people with any background interests. Tutors do not need to know about every subject because tutoring skills are shared among volunteers when needed.