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. 

Now in its fourth year, Experience Corps-Greater New Haven, is running in six Hamden public elementary schools, Wintergreen Magnet School, and Highville Charter School, powered by a team of volunteers dedicated to seeing success for the children they serve and contributing to their community.  Experience Corps-Greater New Haven is a partnership of United Way of Greater New Haven and the Area on Aging of South Central CT. 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.

Impacts 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.

Impacts 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.

Read the April 5, 2010 Washington Post story on the research on Experience Corps: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040500012.html?hpid=sec-education