“I cannot believe my eyes!”
-Jason, tutoring student, upon seeing the pencil cups that Carman (VotM March ‘16) sorted and filled with sharpened, eraser-ed pencils.
-How we feel every time March 2016 Volunteer of the Month Carman Judd is helping with a project or program
When Carman first started volunteering a little over a year ago, she let us know that because she would be commuting from East Lansing, she wanted concentrate her volunteer efforts into one day per week. I sent her a list of every program happening on the day she was free, thinking she would choose a couple volunteer opportunities.
It is a joy to witness Carmen working with our students, whether posing as a suspect in a field trip or coming up with a creative new approach with our tutoring students. For example, some of our ELL students find writing challenging, and so we’ve been working on helping them participate in the writing process. Carman created innovative and effective writing exercises using fill-in-the-blank sentences and illustrations with goofy and accessible themes. It has worked amazingly and engaged the student with writing in a way we hadn’t yet achieved.
More than just being amazing with students, Carman is always working on projects to make Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair better than ever. Recently, on short notice we asked her to help with the new store window, and without hesitation, she came in and spent eight hours getting store products ready and setting up the window. She even has an awesome Instagram where she regularly promotes LSRS&R products in clever and delightful ways (if you search #onwardrobots, you can see for yourself!).
Carman is a complete joy to be around—easy to talk with, warm, vibrant, interesting, funny—and often uses her charisma to welcome new volunteers and students to 826. We feel incredibly lucky to that we get to hang out with her so much and so many of our students get to benefit from her many talents!