We’ve all spent countless hours worrying about our kids during the pandemic. We talk about how adaptable kids are, but none of us imagined our kids would have to face the kind of intense global and national experiences we’ve had over the last few months.
But while we do have to be vigilant about our kids’ social and emotional health, their resilience and creativity during this challenging time is nothing short of astounding. Last month, we wrote about some of the volunteer programs Angelenos young and old are participating in to give back. This month’s shoutout goes to a few teens who are using their knowledge to tutor other kids. Even more impressive is that these teens have started their own organizations to try to help fill in the educational gaps created by COVID-19.
Sophia Scott, a senior at Marymount High School, recently founded Quaranteens, a pending nonprofit organization that provides free K-12 virtual tutoring services and summer-school-like individual sessions. Scott says her mission is to “help level the playing field for students from all backgrounds, especially those struggling due to coronavirus school closures.”
Quaranteens uses an all-female team of volunteers (L.A. natives) who are high school and college students attending a variety of schools, including the University of Chicago, Brown and Princeton universities. The organization offers tutoring in math, science, writing and composition, literature and reading comprehension, history and social studies, international languages and test preparation.
Like Scott, Sarah Shapiro and her best friend, Skye Loventhal, are making headlines and TV news show appearances as a result of their tutoring program. Shapiro and Loventhal, seniors at Granada Hills Charter, founded The Covid NineTEEN Project to provide free activity sessions and one-on-one tutoring for elementary school students during the pandemic. A team of more than 100 teen mentors from L.A. and beyond are getting involved.
Shapiro and Loventhal say that in addition to helping young students academically, they hope to inspire them to “continue to flourish despite the uncertainty of the outside world.”
These teens are showing us all that they are more than resilient; they are strategic, benevolent and forward-thinking leaders.