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Role: Read Aloud Volunteer
School: Kensington International School
February’s Volunteer Spotlight features Gloireadieu (Glodie) Manyegezi, a senior from Springfield’s Central High School who has earned All-State honors in soccer. Glodie, who attended Kensington International Elementary School from 3rd through 5th grade, returned there as a Read Aloud volunteer through a partnership between Central High School’s Red Cross Club and Springfield School Volunteers. This partnership pairs high school students in Central’s Red Cross Club with classrooms at Kensington International Elementary School, where they volunteer once a month for the duration of the Read Aloud program, and has been exceptionally well-received by staff and students alike.
Glodie speaks fondly of his time at Kensington International. As someone who came to the United States as a child from another country, he describes the experience as instrumental to both his academic and personal growth. “It helped me develop and learn the language,” he shares.
Having once benefited from the Read Aloud program himself, Glodie now takes pride in returning to see former teachers and model fluent literacy for current students.
“My favorite part of Read Aloud is when the students are excited to see me,” Glodie says. “They ask questions about the book, but also about myself, and I can give them insight into what it’s like to be in high school.”
Glodie values Central High School’s commitment to service and gives special thanks to Mr. Jean Claude Gerlus, the Red Cross Club Advisor from Central High School and Mrs. Laurie Butt, our Read Aloud contact person at Kensington International, for sustaining the partnership. “It’s important to show the younger students that we used to be them, and we still care about them as people and their learning.”
This fall, Glodie hopes to attend the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where he plans to study Chemical Engineering and continue dominating on the soccer field as a student-athlete.
Thank you to Glodie and all of the other members of Central High School’s Red Cross Club who shared their love of reading with students as Read Aloud volunteers this year!
“I have been participating in the Read Aloud Program for the past 10 years and had planned to make this my last year, but my experience was so heartwarming and I loved every minute of [it.] I am anxious to return next month.”
– Marjorie Hurst, Volunteer
“Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that helping in our schools has truly been a life changing event for me. I should be paying them for letting me help.”
– Don Dorn, Jr., Volunteer at Samuel Bowles School
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