Torch

Issue date: 4/2/08Section: Features

Media Credit: TORCH PHOTO/LAURA AMATO St. John's Jumpstart site manager Theresa Pumilia tells of the impact Jumpstart has had on her own life.

According to the Jumpstart Organization, one in every three children in America enters kindergarten without the skills necessary to succeed. Theresa Pumilia, the newly inducted site manager of the St. John's chapter of Jumpstart and former pre-school teacher, views her role in this organization as a mode through which she can support and facilitate the early literacy development of pre-school children in the community. After teaching for five years and being named the 2007 Teacher of the Year in the Maryland, Washington and Virginia region, Pumilia found her way to
St. John's.

"When I came to St. John's, I was in search of a different opportunity," said Pumilia. "I enjoyed the literacy aspect of teaching and Jumpstart provides a way to reach out to more people. It's not just about working with the 90 plus St. John's students that participate, because we reach so many more children than I could have in my classroom of just 25."

Founded at Yale University in 1993, Jumpstart began as a single campus-based service program and grew into a nationwide non-profit organization that currently serves nearly 12,000 pre-school children in 19 different states. Funded by AmeriCorps, Jumpstart's national service partner, this organization selects schools with under-served populations, considering both the academic and socio-economic status of its children.

"Jumpstart basically looks around at the status of each pre-school to determine if we'd be a good fit for them," said Pumilia. "Then we go through a student checklist to find which students would truly benefit from the program."

The St. John's chapter of Jumpstart, which was introduced in 2004, currently serves seven different local schools and over 90 children using a model that was designed to foster their three chief concerns: school success, which builds childhood literacy, family involvement, which reinforces learning, and future teachers, as Jumpstart seeks to assist pre-educators in expanding their skills. Each student participant, called a Corps member, undergoes 60 hours of early childhood education training by Pumilia and then is assigned to one child. They then enter the classroom and help their child to develop their language, reading and social interaction skills.

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