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Volunteer of the Year: Gretchen Sides, Brightlane Learning
Gretchen Sides had just moved to Indianapolis from Ohio and was looking for a way to give back to her new community. A friend suggested volunteering as a tutor, so Sides went to an informational session for an organization called School on Wheels and signed up to tutor one hour a week at the Wheeler Mission Center for Women and Children, which was convenient to where she worked.
That was 12 years ago.
Much has changed since then. School on Wheels is now Brightlane Learning. Sides has a different job (now at Salesforce). And even the location where she tutors has moved from a basement room to dedicated classroom space.
But Sides is still there, every Tuesday night during the school year, helping and motivating students.
“It’s more than helping them to finish their homework and more than just encouraging them to get good grades in school,” she said. “The main goal is to foster a lifelong love of learning and sparking their interest in discovering things on their own.”
Brightlane Learning provides tutoring services in more than 30 Indianapolis locations, including Indianapolis Public Schools, Indianapolis Public Library branches, and community centers, shelters and apartment buildings. The goal is to “transform the lives of students impacted by homelessness and housing instability by providing personalized tutoring and academic support while advocating for their families as they navigate the educational system.”
Keith Bevacqua, Brightlane’s education support coordinator, said Sides stands out among volunteers for dedication to understanding each student and how best to support them.
“Wheeler’s third floor is designated as emergency [shelter], so most of the families only stay for two to three months, and our classroom experiences a lot of turnover,” he wrote in a letter supporting Sides as volunteer of the year. “The consistency and kindness Gretchen shows allows her to quickly connect with students and build trust necessary to help them move forward.”
Sides said she finds the work gratifying, if sometimes bittersweet. The most rewarding part, she said, is “seeing the kids get fulfillment out of it—starting a semester with a student who’s reading below grade level and after a few months seeing them start to recognize sight words”—
frequently used words that are often difficult to decode using phonics alone—“in stories, then asking to take the book with them, then asking for more books.”
The bittersweet part comes when a child moves on after attachments are formed. During the spring semester this year, one student who had taught himself to crochet made a drink coaster for Sides as a thank you gift. He said he hoped to continue working with her, but that won’t happen.
“Ideally, at the end of the year, they move up and out, and you never see them again,” said Sides, who will be back for year 13 as a volunteer when school reopens in August. “But that’s a really good thing because it means they’re on to better things.”•
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