Ensuring young students can read, so they are free to accomplish their dreams, is a goal of a literacy program based at the University of South Florida’s Sarasota-Manatee campus that matches USF students with middle schoolers needing support to boost their reading skills — and to set a course for brighter futures.
“I cannot imagine the terror it must be to try to manage life without being able to read,” Mary Kay Henson told the USF students during an orientation session for the Booker Middle School Literacy Initiative. “You’re going to be able to give something that you do without even thinking about it, reading, and you are going to be able to change a life.”
The USF students are tutoring and mentoring students at Sarasota’s most economically disadvantaged middle school as part of the initiative, which is funded by a $500,000 gift from Henson and her husband Joe, noted Sarasota philanthropists. Beyond helping to improve the students’ reading skills, the USF students — of whom only some are considering careers as teachers — are embedding themselves into the children’s lives to provide them with positive role models and new opportunities for success.