Everybody Wins Power Lunch

Team Blackbaud Cambridge is proud to support the Everybody Wins Power Lunch, a reading and mentoring program that matches elementary school students with volunteers from nearby businesses.  Reading mentors meet with students once a week during lunch to read a book together.  We talk with students and read aloud while the kids eat their lunch.  This simple interaction is a wonderful way to encourage and promote the many benefits of reading.

Every week, a group of us from the Cambridge office meet to walk or drive to the Morse School.  There, we meet up with Magda McCormick, the Power Lunch Coordinator, and wait for the kids to emerge from the cafeteria with their lunches in hand.  The kids are really eager to see us.  The smiles are a clear signal that the program has value to them (and our smiles show how much we’re getting in return).  We pair up and head to the school library where we find a seat and catch up on the past week before settling in to read a book together. 

The 45-minute Power Lunch goes by too quickly.  We exchange goodbyes, and the kids settle back into their class work with the added comfort of knowing we’ll be back in a week to read another book.  When we leave the school each time, we know we’ve done our part to both impart the joy of reading and to show a group of kids that we care enough to keep coming back.