The summer before freshman year is filled with offers from different organizations in the quad, seminars on campus activities and gatherings at afterHOURS. I kept an eye out at freshman orientation for somewhere I could earn my workstudy award. I could have worked in the library, the bookstore, ResMail or as an office assistant in one of the many administrative buildings on campus. My worry, though, was that my time earning workstudy wouldn’t have any value beyond meeting my weekly monetary needs. One of the seminars at orientation introduced me to Jumpstart, and it seemed like a better option than anything else I had looked into.

Jumpstart unites college students at more than 60 universities around the country in a mission to work toward the day that every child in America enters school prepared to succeed. It may sound like a lofty goal, but by sending teams of college students to preschools in Roxbury every week, Jumpstart Northeastern is actively working toward that goal.

After 60 hours of training in early childhood development, I was paired with two preschool boys at the Dimock Community Health Center. I worked with them individually on their language, literacy and social-initiative skills. Soon they were my two best friends; within hours, we transformed from dinosaurs to firefighters to Spiderman. If that wasn’t enough, my Jumpstart team became the people I went to the dining hall with, sat next to in class and hung out with on Friday nights. To top it off, at the end of the year, I received a $1,000 education grant from AmeriCorps, one of Jumpstart’s many partners.

My goal in writing this letter is to inspire as many other students as possible to join Jumpstart. If you are interested, contact Desirae Simmons at 617-373-5840 and go to jstart.org to apply. Make your time matter, too.

– Nellie Moore is a sophomore human services and international affairs major and a program assistant with Jumpstart Boston at Northeastern.