Join our Campaign Kickoff, co-hosted with Mentor MD DC and DC Action
at Busboys & Poets (2021 14th St NW) on January 30th at 4:45pm!
RSVP here.
There’s a role for everybody in the District to strengthen our community and our democracy!
Join us and commit yourself to building a community that works for everybody.
Wondering where to start? Read on!
Overview
The City-Wide Mentoring & Tutoring Campaign, launched in January 2025, has TWO goals:
- Get a mentor or tutoring for every DC kid who needs extra support, and
- To show ourselves and the world that we really CAN work together for the long-term with love & wisdom to make a better world for all.
The campaign is a joint project of DC Tutoring & Mentoring Initiative (DCTMI), MENTOR Maryland|DC & DC Action and our dozens of partner organizations.
We are guided by the perspective of Martin Luther King:
We must work with passion and determination to bridge the gulf between our scientific and technological progress, on the one hand, and our moral and spiritual progress on the other. If we do not learn to live and work together as brothers and sisters, we will perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King, Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community, 1967, lightly edited)
The Need
- Two out of 3 DC students are reading below grade level — more than 60,000 kids. Even more need help with math, or just need an extra caring adult in their lives
- At least half of students in most DCPS high schools aren’t even “near proficient” in their English and math skills
- Nearly 1 in 5 students are absent at least a day a week (on average)
- 1,000 students are dropping out each year
How to Get Involved:
Join a Working Group
We’d be delighted to work with you, and whatever your community is, to help create a group that can make a difference on the ground and enjoy the process.
- Employers
- Universities
- East of the River
- Faith Community
- Your neighborhood association
- Other volunteer groups – we’ll work with you to help you create your own.
A Comprehensive & Holistic Path Forward:
Now is the time!
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Never let a good crisis — or a tumultuous year of change — go to waste. “
In 2024 we had…
1. The Education Potential: If 1 out of 10 employees or residents in DC helped out 2 hours a week, every student in a traditional or charter school that needed extra help could receive it!
kids reading below grade level
jobs in DC
2. Take the Long View: If we treat other people — our own kids, other kids, adults — as basically good people who want to do the right thing, help others, and be capable contributing members of their community who can learn and grow as human beings, over the long term (but not necessarily the short term), almost all people will actually become more capable, kinder, more “prosocial” members of their community. It’s what good parents understand. It’s the well-researched orientation of good teachers who “set high expectations” for their students.
3. Taking on tough civic challenges, we grow as leaders and as human beings. Tired of being just a “cog in the wheel” at work, we have the opportunity to use our heads, hearts and hands together, to bring out our creativity, our intuition, and our deepest values to our volunteer work. This project is not only about helping kids but about how us adults can develop our potential, too. You can help as a tutor or mentor, or help us engage others to build a real movement of people working together with a shared vision.
4. It will take a comprehensive “ecosystem” of neighborhood teams, employers, retirees, college students, teachers, nonprofit after-school, tutoring, and mentoring organizations and schools. It’s about helping kids academically but also connecting them with the outdoors, the arts, with how they can contribute to their community as citizens.
