IU Indiana Kids program
A connection through baseball is helping grow a program meant for teens at IU South Bend.
The IU Indiana Kids program is starting a new partnership with the South Bend Cubs Foundation and is recruiting the help of the IU South Bend baseball team to start an after-school program for students, especially ones who play on travel baseball teams.
Their plan is to offer tutoring, mentoring and other baseball-themed activities at the South Bend Cubs field one night per week beginning this fall.
Building relationships is challenging, but is key to growing the program, program coordinator Ginny Heidemann said.
The campus partnered with South Bend Community Schools to have tutors embedded in the district’s summer school program. For three weeks, six tutors went to work with a teacher they were assigned to, offering help to middle school students in summer school, but also working to build relationships with those students.
And that effort has paid off, with 45 students signing up for tutoring through the Indiana Kids program.
Ginny pointed to one connection as a key success, where a student initially started with tutoring, but made a strong connection with a tutor that has now turned into a mentorship, with the student and mentor meeting regularly and building that relationship.
The IU Indiana Kids program, launched from the IUPUI campus, is a collaboration between Serve Indiana and seven Indiana University campuses (IUPUI, IU Bloomington, IU East, IU Kokomo, IU Northwest, IU South Bend, and IU Southeast) providing free tutoring, mentoring, college and career resources to students in grades six through twelve.