AARP Experience Corps - Greater New Haven is recruiting volunteers age 55+ to tutor literacy with children in Hamden elementary schools 10+ hours a week during the school year. No teaching or tutoring experience is necessary and training is provided. Volunteers also participate in fun community events. You must have a high school diploma or GED and be able to pass a background check and literacy screening. A small stipend with tuition help for children or grandchildren is available. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer tutor, please call (203) 752-3059 x 2900, email, or visit AARP Experience Corps - Greater New Haven.

Volunteers are transforming disadvantaged students' lives and their own health and well-being, according to the ever increasing research that highlights the extraordinary impacts of the Experience Corps program.

AARP Experience Corps - Greater New Haven is a program of the Agency on Aging of South Central Connecticut in partnership with United Way of Greater New Haven and Hamden Public Schools. This project is a proud member of the AmeriCorps National Service Network. Both organizations have a long history and commitment to volunteerism, and with their respective expertise in education and older adult issues, and with the support of the Hamden Public Schools, have sheparded the program from concept to full implementation for children in Hamden schools.

Impact on students:

A two-year, two million dollar study completed in 2009 by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, involving 881 second- and third-graders in three cities, found that students with Experience Corps tutors made over 60 percent more progress with reading comprehension and sounding out new words than comparable students not in the program.

Impact on older adults:

One small-scale study reported in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences last year - which included sophisticated neuroimaging of 17 study members over 60 - including eight Experience Corps volunteers in Baltimore - suggested that tutoring young children in reading and math could delay or even reverse brain aging.