January 5, 2006

The Village Tutoring Program received a Community Service Award from the Men’s Group. The program includes Nancy Lewkowicz, left, Shelbert Smith, Therese Greene, Helen Sparks, William Simpson and Dorothy Call.

By Lauren Heaton

Last month local resident Al Schlueter and the Village Tutoring Program were each presented with a Distinguished Community Service Award for 2005 in recognition of the service they gave to the village.

Though the Yellow Springs Men’s Group has in the past given one annual award, its members felt that both nominees were equally deserving of recognition.

“We looked at the impact of the person or group on the entire village, and realized there were special circumstances this year,” said Bill Alexander, the president of the Men’s Group. “Al’s volunteer work is a 40-hour-a-week job that impacts the entire village. And the Village Tutoring Program started to help children who aren’t doing well, but it also takes those who are doing well and exposes them to new things.”

The Men’s Group presented plaques to Schlueter and tutoring program founders Helen Sparks and Joan Dungey on Dec. 17. The recipients’ names will also be added to the plaque in the Bryan Community Center, next to former recipients Miami Township Fire-Rescue and the Senior Center transportation crew, to honor those who have devoted their time and energy to bettering the Yellow Springs community.

Village Tutoring Program
The Village Tutoring Program was started in 1998 by former teachers Helen Sparks and Joan Dungey, who saw the need for supplemental academic support for some of their students in Yellow Springs.

The two women recruited a host of volunteers who met with students from kindergarten to 12th grade two nights a week at the First Baptist Church to work on improving the science, social studies, math and reading skills of students in need of help.

The program continues today with the help of volunteers Shelbert Smith, Nancy Lewkowicz, Terese Greene, Dorothy Call, Mary Willett, Sam Borst and William Simpson, who are supported by the original coordinators, Sparks and Dungey. The one-on-one tutoring takes place after school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and is focused on supporting McKinney Middle School and Yellow Springs High School students.

Each tutor volunteers at least three to four hours a week to help students with the work they bring to their sessions, Sparks said. In addition to their current work, if students lack comprehension in a particular area, tutors help them to understand general concepts, Call said.

Though doing extra academic work after the regular school day may not seem appealing, tutors say that after the students see their report cards they get very interested in coming to get academic help, Smith said.

In some cases, the tutoring makes a big difference, and tutors see their students’ grades improve greatly. In other cases, the tutors said, their sessions serve as a support system for youth who need an adult role model to show interest in their academic pursuits.

The tutors, many of whom are retired teachers, get satisfaction from helping students to understand a subject and apply it to their work, according to Lewkowicz. The tutors learn from their students too, said Greene, whose students are helping her to become more computer literate.

“For the students to be successful, it’s got to be an effort on their part to want to learn and improve,” Smith said. “It’s a cooperative effort between the tutor and the student.”

The tutors, many of whom are friends and neighbors, also enjoy each others’ company and volunteer for other organizations as well. And because they all perceive there will always be a need to support students with their schoolwork, they continue to want to serve.

“Since I got into it from the very beginning, I never felt I wanted to leave the program,” Sparks said.

“It’s also hard to say no to Helen,” Call said. “The way she says, ‘I need you,’ you can’t say no.”

Al Schlueter also received a Community Service Award from the Men’s Group for his volunteer work with organizations in Yellow Springs and in the Miami Valley.

Al Schlueter
According to the 12 letters the Men’s Group received in support of his nomination, Schlueter is a consummate community servant.

“He is truly selfless and committed to making our community a better place to live and to improving the quality of life for others,” said Stephen Peterson, the assistant dean of student affairs at Wright State. Fellow Unitarian Pat Olds sees him as a local Gandhi or a Mother Teresa, she wrote in her nomination. Marianne MacQueen, the Director of Home, Inc., said he was always focused on helping others “whether he is hosting families from other countries in his home, volunteering for the squad, reading to students at Mills Lawn, volunteering for Wright State School of Medicine, or organizing the Tar Hollow Camporee.”

Since Schlueter retired from teaching chemistry at Central State in 1998, he has volunteered to screen Wright State medical school applicants, built affordable homes with Home, Inc., tutored Mills Lawn students, helped families with Hospice of Dayton, served the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, run with the Miami Township Fire-Rescue squad, served as the chairman of the Village Manager Search Committee, opened his home to visitors from abroad and, most important, according to David Westneat, has been a supportive friend and neighbor.

Though others see him as selfless, Schlueter said his motivation couldn’t be more to the contrary. “Almost every time I’ve done something people say was a kind or generous act, I get more out of it than anyone,” he said.

From Schlueter’s perspective, everything he does is done simply because it makes him happy. It makes him happy to talk with people from different countries, he likes meeting the next generation of future doctors at Wright State, and he gets joy from working outside to build homes with a group of other people, he said. He’s a people person, and volunteering is a great way to meet friends while being of service, he said.

Schlueter thinks he has come a long way from the stoic German-American roots that shaped him into an introverted scientist. After earning a Ph.D. in chemistry, he got his first teaching position at Tougaloo College in Mississippi in the 1960s. The experience of being around a very expressive group of African-American students changed him forever, he said. He still remembers the shock he felt when one of his students, returning to school after summer break, approached him and gave him a huge hug.

“It was something I wasn’t used to, and I was uncomfortable at first,” he said. “But then I decided it felt pretty good.”

At Tougaloo he learned the value of diversity and came to Central State to continue to learn from people of other cultures. In 1983, he took his son Eric to Liberia, where he had a Fulbright Fellowship to teach. When he returned, he began hosting families from other countries to live in his home. He has hosted people from Denmark, Canada, Portugal and Russia and is currently hosting Eric Hayford, a student from Ghana.

At 65, Schlueter is starting to feel that he has a finite amount of time to do all the things he still wants to do. But he feels inspired by his role model, Shelbert Smith, to keep going full speed to do the things he believes in.

“I think we all are looking for meaning in life, and to me it’s what you can contribute to make life meaningful for everyone else,” he said. “But it’s self-preservation because I don’t do it for other people, I do it for myself. It’s my Prozac.”

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com