“I really enjoy it; it feeds me in so many ways,” says Margo McLoone, one of a handful of UIDN volunteers who worked with immigrant students in the Kingston City Schools during the school year that just ended.
Above left: father and son at the Reading Together celebration.
Right: children with books they received to take home.
December 2024: these photos have been removed
to protect our friends and neighbors.
“The teachers are fabulous,” Margo added, “but the demand on them is immense: not only are they teaching students to read and write, but they’re also helping them with inevitable problems recent immigrants face.”
UIDN started recruiting volunteers to work in classrooms because we heard from parents and teachers that even though Kingston has a well-regarded ENL program, an extra adult in the classroom can make a real difference. ENL stands for English as a New Language a term that has is replacing ESL (English as a Second Language) in many parts of the nation.
About 25% of students in Kingston are Latino, and the district has Spanish-speaking staff and ENL teachers in eight of its 10 schools. The families UIDN works with typically speak an indigenous Mayan language, most often Kekchi, as well as Spanish. In fact, Kekchi, sometimes spelled Qʼeqchiʼ, is thought to be the third most common language spoken in Kingston.
Never felt so useful
Each Wednesday during the school year Margo spent two hours at Edson Elementary. “It’s fun, and I have lots of laughs. I have 30 years’ experience in the classroom and I’ve never felt as useful as I do now. Students need help and are eager to learn.” While Margo was a teacher, volunteers don’t need to be educators or speak a child’s home language.
Janice Potter also volunteered at Edson for two hours a week. Like Margo, she worked under the supervision of ENL teacher Colleen Connors. “The kids LOVE correcting my Spanish,” Janice says. “Sometimes they quiz me the following week to test what I’ve remembered. Those kids surely taught me more than I taught them.”
Janice says the students particularly enjoy coloring time, and she liked hearing them talk about their lives as they created drawings. Janice thanked UIDN “for giving me the opportunity to work with those wonderful teachers and charming children.”
Reading Together
The New Paltz-based Reading Together program matches ENL students with community volunteers for weekly reading sessions, online or in person. Launched in the first year of the pandemic by UIDN board member Jo Salas and artist and Spanish interpreter Tona Wilson, the program now has 20 children enrolled.
Fifty readers, partners, and their families gathered recently at the Reformed Church of New Paltz for Stories Together, a celebration featuring theater and conversations over the delicious dishes brought by the families and volunteers. Children took home armfuls of books generously donated by Elting Library and Barner Books.
Families from Latin America, Afghanistan, Taiwan, and China shared stories about life, reading, and friendship, while actors and musicians with the interactive Hudson River Playback Theatre listened, bringing their stories to life on the spot. Jo recounted how one father spoke of his hope that his children’s lives will be free of the hardships that immigrants face now.
Learn more, get involved
If you’d like to know more about Reading Together, volunteering in the schools, or if you’re an ENL teacher who would like to have a classroom volunteer please email UIDN@UlsterImmigrantDefenseNetwork.org.
