March 2008 – Nicole Premo

March 2, 2008 | 826 Blog Post

Nicole Premo

Nicole Premo!

Some people might say it’s a bit premature to award Nicole Premo Volunteer of the Month status. Those people would be wrong.

True enough, Nicole just came to us in December. But what started in early December as “I’d like to tutor once a week” quickly turned into “I’ll tutor almost every day and I’ll come in on Fridays to work with this student who had to drop out of school and I’ll bind that student a special book of essays I think she’ll like and I’ll also come in with a friend and organize your library and I’ll paint or do whatever else you need help with and hey, what do you know, now you see me every day and I’m just like a ray of sunshine, but exactly!” We’re paraphrasing, of course, but that’s about where it’s at.

In addition to being very gorgeous (it’s a shame, really, that this was literally the only picture we could come up with), Nicole is incredibly smart and thoughtful. Good attributes for a tutor to have, sure, but even then she goes above and beyond. She agreed, as we said, to come in on Fridays to work with a teen who had to drop out of school to take care of her many siblings when her mother died. What started as us saying, “Can you come in and work with her once a week?” has turned into Nicole’s response of: “I found this anthology, and this anthology, and I did some hunting around online and found this stuff I think she’ll like and last week we worked on some of her own writing and it’s really incredible and I want to keep working with her, and I’ll stay all afternoon if she will and and and…” That seems to be how it goes with Nicole Premo. She agrees to one thing, and then manages to turn it into doing fifty things, and still does each of them well. We’ve known this particular student to be on the shy side, and certainly on the nervous-to-share side, so the fact that she has opened up so quickly to Nicole really says something.

What does it say? Ugh…you’re always taking everything so literally. We guess it says that Nicole is really good at what she does. The word “gifted” comes to mind, as does the phrase “a natural teacher.” She takes a genuine, thoughtful (there that word is again, but it’s just so true) approach to working with students. And she’s able to take that approach to any task, from mundane task work to reading over Of Mice and Men.

Also, it seems worth mentioning that she typed her volunteer application, on an actual typewriter. Not that we expect that, but there was something that felt really impressive about it. At the very least it says she owns a working typewriter, and we respect that.

Thanks Nicole! Please stay with us forever and don’t ever ever ever leave us!


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