History
Started in 2004 at the request of the Coachella Valley Unified School District Superintendent of Schools, Roberta and Clay Klein started a fund at the Desert Community Foundation and asked the pastor of their church for his assistance in recruiting volunteers. Father Howard Lincoln of Sacred Heart Church readily agreed. The District had been using English speaking volunteers to the extent, they could get them to go into the schools in the district that had no English speaking people in the community. Roberta asked the Superintendent if he would provide buses if they could recruit volunteers who were fluent in English through churches and other organizations.
Read With Me was born and now brings volunteers from seven churches to five different schools. The schools are all in areas of high poverty with a majority of the parents untrained in academic English. They love their children but cannot help them with English.
In 2013, Read With Me received a Golden Bell Award for English Acquisition from the California School Board Association. We believe the program is totally replicable in other areas that face similar challenges in providing tutoring and mentoring for disadvantaged children in a classroom setting.
What we do
In the classroom, the teacher assigns individual volunteers to selected students to listen to them read, assisting them with pronunciation and comprehension. The mentor/tutors are typically retired part-time Coachella Valley residents, some with special skills who help specific students go beyond the basic.
Read With Me
Honored with the Golden Bell award for English Acquisition by the California School Board Association and the 2022 GuideStar Silver Seal of Transparency
Volunteer Programs
Volunteer
Opportunities!
"Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand."
~ Chinese proverb
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"Volunteers are magic!"
 ~ Dr. Edwin Gomez, Superintendent of
Riverside County Office of Education
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Read With Me is currently serving 20 schools through ten churches and four community organizations. For more information, or if you are interested in joining one of our existing groups, please contact the coordinator listed on the volunteer page in the drop down on the menu above.
Since there are many elementary schools in the three districts serving Coachella Valley, we need more sponsoring churches and community organizations to add to our current group of over three hundred volunteers. If you are interested in sponsoring a volunteer group, a participating school, or a new partnering school, please visit our "Become A Contributor" page, and reach out directly to our Read with Me Executive Director, Sean Webb at readwithmeseanwebb@gmail.com
