THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 6, 1996 TAG: 9609060568
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 79 lines
Tallwood High School quarterback Gilbert Harris is calling a new play this year.
With a University of Maryland scholarship on the line, this 17-year-old senior isn't wasting any time as he makes sure his grades and Scholastic Assessment Test scores are up to snuff.
Harris is among a growing number of students who are taking advantage of academic help sessions offered by the Making A Difference Foundation's volunteer tutors. Wednesday evening, Harris and 18 other students from South Hampton Roads schools were cracking the books at Kempsville High School. Most were from Virginia Beach, but some came from Suffolk and Chesapeake.
``A lot of my friends didn't take it serious till the last minute,'' Harris said, looking up from his math book. ``I thought I needed it. There's a lot to know and steps to follow'' in doing one's best on SATs.
A $25,000 state School-to-Work grant has allowed MAD to expand its program this fall and offer scholarships to deserving students. Also in the offing are a van to transport kids to tutoring sites and a college and job fair.
The new award comes on the heels of a $20,000 grant - the largest given statewide - in the spring that allowed the group to continue its work through the summer. Both grants are part of Gov. George F. Allen's educational initiative and are funded by the U.S. departments of education and labor.
During the past four years, the Virginia Beach-based nonprofit organization has worked with more than 7,000 students and has seen 2,017 of them off to college.
This year's goal is to tutor and mentor 2,000 youths and help at least one-fourth of them to go on to post-secondary studies, said Bob Bobulinski, foundation director.
New tutoring sites include one in Hampton and several in South Hampton Roads cities still being developed.
The new grant lets MAD pay its tutors for travel. With two sites on the Peninsula, that can become burdensome.
The scholarship fund was started with $3,000 of the award. MAD must match half that amount, and is raising the $1,500 from local businesses and hopes to get the fund up to $5,000 this year. The money will be doled out to winners of a winter essay contest for participating students.
Not all students at Kempsville on Wednesday were concentrating, like Harris, improving their scores on college entrance tests.
Twenty-year-old Mike Griffin, for example, was dividing decimals by decimals as part of his preparation for the General Equivalency Diploma test. He dropped out of Tallwood in the ninth grade after taking ``the wrong path.'' Now, with two kids of his own, Griffin is ``trying to do better'' and ``struggling to pay the bills'' with a paycheck from his job as a landscaper. He hopes to attend Tidewater Community College this fall and begin work toward certification as an auto mechanic.
``This is the answer,'' Griffin said, tapping his pencil eraser on the page of the math book. ``I know I'm going to get through it.''
In another room, Alicia Bobulinski - Bob's wife - helped 8-year-old Patrice Thomas with her spelling. A third-grader at Williams Elementary School in Virginia Beach, Patrice had finished her homework and was chalking words on the blackboard.
Also Wednesday, Johannah Thompson, 17, a Kempsville High senior, came ``to get help with the homework I was stuck on,'' and Michael Brown, a 16-year-old Kempsville High sophomore, was stuck on an analogy in his SAT verbal practice text.
``Throng,'' he mused. ``I think it's a group of people.''
He grinned after consulting the dictionary.
``A crowd,'' he said.
Brown hopes to get a wrestling scholarship for college, where he'll study marine biology. Though he hasn't yet taken the SATs, he's getting a jump on them so he'll ``do a good job.'' MEMO: For more information, call Bob or Alicia Bobulinski at 495-5009 or
474-0392, or Mike Mitchell at 479-1161, or call 499-1925. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot
Alicia Bobulinski, a volunteer tutor with the Making A Difference
program, helps Deandra Thomas, 11, front, with math during a study
session at Kempsville High School on Wednesday.
KEYWORDS: MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOUNDATION by CNB