Paul Szmal: We have a virtual room full of guests from the United Way of Cayuga County this morning, so let me introduce everybody. First, Executive Director Lisa Kaminsky is here. Good morning, Lisa.
Guest: Good morning, Paul.
Paul Szmal: We also have an alumnus of the Student United Way, Ryan Mahunick. Ryan, I hope I got your last name correct there.
Guest: You did.
Paul Szmal: Wonderful. And Linda D'Orio, who is a book buddy administrator, joins us as well. Hi, Linda.
Guest: Good morning.
Paul Szmal: All right, so we've got quite a bit to get to, and I want to start by getting a little bit of an overlook at some of the youth success initiatives that the United Way has. Lisa, what can you tell us about what the youth success initiatives are and how they work?
Guest: Sure, Paul. So at United Way of Cayuga County, when we talk about our youth success initiatives, what we're really talking about is trying to make sure that every young person in the community has the opportunity to succeed in school and in life. And we try to do that through our programs like our Book Buddies, which is our program where we are partnering right now with the Auburn School District, and we have volunteers that go in two times a month to read with second graders. And so we're helping students to build strong reading skills, confidence, and really a love of reading. We know that early literacy is a very big predictor of long-term success, and that's pretty powerful with that program, because it's not just about the reading, it's really about the relationships that they're building with their adult book buddy. And then we also have our Student United Way program, which again, we're partnering with the Auburn School District, where we have an after-school group of high school students in our Student United Way, and they help us to plan community service projects around the community. So they're really learning about volunteerism, civic engagement. They're learning about board governance. They attend our board meetings, and so they learn about board governance. So they're learning a lot about how to give back to their community.
Paul Szmal: And there's a desire to expand this program beyond the Auburn and Large City School District, right?
Guest: Yes, that's correct. So right now, we are in, for book buddies, we are in Genesee Elementary and Herman Elementary. And this fall, we are confirmed to add Casey Park Elementary. But we're also having conversations with schools outside of the Auburn community. We're currently speaking with Weedspore and Union Springs and Moravia. So we are looking to expand, and eventually we would love to be in every school district in the county. The Student United Way program is going to be expanding to Union Springs in the fall. We're excited about that. And again, we really just would love to have these programs in all of our school districts across the county, just to provide more opportunities to our youth. And that's actually going to take some volunteers. We'll get to that a little bit later in the conversation.
Paul Szmal: I want to bring Ryan in here, because Ryan was in the Student United Way while he was at Auburn High, graduated in 2023, and has since gone on to college. Ryan, what was the favorite part of the experience of being in the Student United Way for you?
Guest: My favorite part of being in Student United Way in its inaugural year was definitely all the guest speakers we brought in. And we got to learn a lot about civic engagement as well as volunteerism, and you got to kind of see the people behind the scenes of what is our community and the community service. So people from the government agencies, and really getting to learn more about our community was probably my favorite part.
Paul Szmal: What kind of preparation did that give you for your post-high school life?
Guest: It definitely prepared me really on just being a good citizen, a lot of citizenship, volunteerism, exposure to understanding what's out there to volunteer, to give back, as well as knowing of the various agencies available to people, and just having that kind of well-rounded knowledge of the greater community.
Paul Szmal: It sounds like it was a real eye-opening experience for you, Ryan. It kind of opened your eyes to a world that maybe without this program you might not have known much about.
Guest: Yes, definitely.
Paul Szmal: Why would you recommend this program to other students?
Guest: I think it's great to understand what is available to you and your peers in the community. It's a wonderful way to build experience and to really develop both personally and then help others and help the community around you as well.
Paul Szmal: And will this lead, do you think, to maybe some future volunteering post-college wherever you may wind up, whatever community you may wind up in?
Guest: Yes, definitely. Thanks to what I've learned in Student United Way, I've actually focused a lot on community service in my college experience.
Paul Szmal: Best of success to you in the future, of course, Ryan. Let me bring Linda D'Orio into the conversation here. Lisa was talking about the Book Buddy program, and Linda joined Book Buddies as a full-time buddy just last year. Linda, what's the most rewarding part about being a Book Buddy?
Guest: There's so many rewards to being a Book Buddy. I love to read. Being able to share my love of reading with a second-grade student for the entire school year was just wonderful. You have the same student from September to June, so you're able to build a relationship with them. I saw her growth and confidence in our relationship. She looked forward to our time together every other week, which I 100% did as well. She always had a smile for me as she entered the library and found me at our table. So that said to me that she was as excited about getting together as I was.
Paul Szmal: I think that's an important thing, especially, you know, to get kids to read is, you know, if they form a bond with somebody and they're reading a book with someone, a lot of times that has a lot more positive effects than just, you know, trying to put a book in front of them and say, here, read this.
Guest: Absolutely. I agree.
Paul Szmal: What are you most excited about with your new role now as a Book Buddy Ambassador?
Guest: I'm excited about taking a more active role in the program. I'm very excited about helping to expand Book Buddies into Casey Park in the fall and looking forward to working with the new volunteers, allowing them to have that experience that I did this past school year, introducing them to the program, supporting them as they bond with their student, and just encouraging them as they move through the school year with their student.
Paul Szmal: Now, maybe some of what we're saying may be, you know, putting a light bulb on your head and saying, hey, you know, maybe I should consider doing this. What reasons would you give, Linda, for people becoming a Book Buddy?
Guest: Well, as you mentioned, bonding with somebody, reading one-on-one, it's so important. It gives them additional practice. Lisa mentioned second grade is a very important time for the students to improve their literacy skills, and any time they can have that extra practice, especially just one-on-one with a mentor. The kids love the individual attention. They look forward to getting together. It encourages them to read when they're not with you. And as I experienced, the volunteers will be able to see the student's growth over time because they have the same student for the whole school year. And really, bottom line, it's a small investment of time for the volunteer with a large benefit for the student.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with some folks from the United Way of Cuyahoga County specifically about the Student United Way and the Book Buddy program. And Lisa, let's circle back here because we've mentioned the word volunteer a few times, and volunteers are critical to the success of these kinds of programs.
Guest: Yes, that's very true. Without the volunteers to help us with the Book Buddies program, the Student United Way program, they wouldn't be possible. So we're very appreciative of the people that, you know, say that they're interested in helping out and who make that commitment to come to the program all the time and meet with the students. And we are going to be looking for additional volunteers as we expand the program. So if anyone, you know, has a love of reading or, you know, wants to connect and help make a youth's life better in a small way, they can reach out to United Way of Cuyahoga County and they can, actually, they can visit our Volunteer Cuyahoga site, which is volunteercuyahoga.com. We have all our volunteer opportunities on there. We have a variety of Cuyahoga County volunteer opportunities on there, so they could express their interest there. Of course, they can always give our office a call, 315-253-9741, and we can get them started in the fall with the Book Buddy program or the Student United Way program. And also, I do want to also mention that on our Volunteer Cuyahoga platform right now, our Day of Caring registration is open for volunteering for our Day of Caring.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that is coming up on August the 6th, by the way. And the nice thing about the Volunteer Cuyahoga page, if you've never visited it before, is there are opportunities to view training videos. There are live webinars and one-on-one support available. So if you're just getting your feet wet in the world of volunteering, you go to this site, there's going to be plenty for you to see, plenty for you to learn and experience before you actually get out there and start doing.
Guest: Yes, we are offering monthly webinars on how to use the site, and we provide support to people who are looking for volunteer opportunities. They can always call or email us, and we're happy to support them and help them find volunteer connections in the community.
Paul Szmal: Lisa, have we hit the deadline yet for project submissions for the Day of Caring?
Guest: No, people can still submit project submissions. They can do that on the Volunteer Cuyahoga site. So if an agency or somewhere has a project that they would like volunteers to come out on August 6th and participate in, they can post that project up on the site, and then we'll do some connecting sometime in the next couple weeks. We'll be connecting volunteers with project sites, so we're still looking for projects. And again, the website is volunteercuyahoga.com, volunteercuyahoga.com, or you can search for the United Way of Cuyahoga County website to find out more about the Day of Caring coming up on August the 6th.
Paul Szmal: Lisa, Ryan, Linda, pleasure having you on board this morning. Thanks for sharing.
Guest: Thank you, Paul.
