A "Writers' Room" has opened at Queen Alexandra elementary school at 1300 East Broadway to help disadvantaged inner city students improve their literacy.
The KidSafe Project Society and the Vancouver School Board's Van Tech Community School Team are behind the initiative.
The volunteer-based program launched about a month ago and offers free one-on-one tutoring for at-risk children between five and 13. It runs after school until 4: 30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. More than 40 per cent of Queen Alexandra students struggle with writing.
"They bring their homework and get one-on-one help from a trained tutor. If they don't have homework, they do creative literacy activities," explained Sarah Maitland, KidSafe Writers' Room coordinator. "Over the past couple of weeks we've been working on different stages of making a book so we've made characters and settings. Finally, this week we'll actually be making our books."
Participants also play literacy games to help improve their skills.
Maitland said organizers will use various ways to measure the program's success, including asking children how they feel their skills have improved over the year. Queen Alexandra also measures literacy levels through the year and that information will be useful.
"They agreed to share those numbers with us-not for specific children, but if I say these 78 kids have been in our program can you give me a general idea about their increases or decreases, they can share that information," Maitland said. She believes kids' confidence levels have already increased.
During school breaks, the Writers' Room program, which is modelled on a San Francisco program called 826 Valencia where Maitland interned, is available to students from five other East Side schools.
Students' writing and art is being posted until Nov. 20 in East Side transit shelter ad spaces donated by the City of Vancouver and designed by print designers Mauve Pagé and Steffen Quong.
The Writers' Room budget for its first, four-month term is $14,000. That includes two weeks of winter break activities for about 275 students from five East Side schools. The budget covers staff salaries, healthy snacks, school supplies, criminal record checks and volunteer appreciation.
The Writers' Room is looking for volunteers and financial donations to help cover next term's costs.
"We're providing kids a safe place to go and role models. We're already seeing great bonds between tutors and the kids," Maitland said. She envisions turning the Writers' Room into more of a family literacy program in the future.
Twitter: @Naoibh
