Tom Krawford!

We knew we were onto something special the moment we looked at Tom Krawford’s volunteer application. It was legibly written, sure, and he had circled “Regularly” for how often he wanted to donate his time to us. We like applications with both those elements, but that wasn’t it. He said “yes” to almost all the items on the skills/interests table. He even went so far as to write “Willing” in the “Other” catagory. He also wrote a self-titled pretend equation in the “Draw a Robot Here (You Could Also Write a Haiku)” section. Again, nice elements, but still not it.

My friends, Tom Krawford wrote, for his favorite writer, two words that warmed the very gears of our robot hearts: Isaac Asimov. Oh Tom, how you made our day with that one.

Tom came to us in September, and has since made himself one of the most dedicated, reliable tutors we’ve ever had the pleasure to know. He shows up early, EVERY Monday. He has, quite literally, never missed a week. And it’s well enough to be reliable, but Tom is also one of our very BEST tutors. He has the ability to work with any age group — elementary through high school — and can always, always relate to whatever students he is assisting. And he regularly goes above and beyond. A few weeks ago, after he helped Sequoia (a new regular, very much a favorite student) finish his homework, the two launched into an impassioned, animated forty-five-minute discussion about football. And juxtapose that with this: when an out-of-line student made one of our oldest and dearest tutors cry (!!!), Tom stayed after for twenty minutes to talk to her and make her feel better.

In addition to tutoring, he helps out at Drop-in Writing Time every Monday night. And when the person who runs Drop-in had to drop out, who stepped up to take over? You guessed it: Volunteer of the Month for December 2008: Tom Krawford. The best part, of course, is that Tom is studying to be a teacher, which is EXACTLY what he should be doing. We know that his patience and dedication to helping young people will carry him far in his chosen field.

Tom: thanks for everything you do. Your natural grace with students inspires us all.