By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer

Nero Montero meets for the last time this school year with his mentor Paul Edmonds of BNY Mellon. (Photo/Ed Karvoski Jr.)
Marlborough – Twenty-three first-graders at Richer Elementary School received certificates at a closing ceremony June 19 as participants with Read to a Child, a nonprofit organization that matches students and volunteer mentors. Its program is currently conducted in five states including 17 schools in Massachusetts. Richer School in Marlborough is the newest to be added as of last fall.
Mary Garner, co-president of Richer PTO, serves as the program’s school coordinator.
“The students’ excitement level for the program was great to see over the course of the year,” she said. “They truly look forward to having that one-on-one time with their mentor. And it does help their reading overall in school.”
Mentors read to the children for 30 minutes weekly during lunchtime. Volunteers have the option of participating every other week.
Hudson native Linda Winin is the region’s director of programs. She began the process of launching the program in Marlborough last year when a corporate sponsor expressed interest in expanding its participation. TJX Companies actively participates in Framingham and offered to sponsor another school after opening a campus in Marlborough.
Richer was considered because of its geographical proximity to TJX, Winin noted.
“Businesses need to be within a 15-minute drive of the school,” she said. “The whole experience should take no more than an hour for the employee.”
Other businesses supporting the program with donations and readers at Richer are BNY Mellon, Bose and New York Life.
“At least 70 percent of our annual budget is from corporate donations,” Winin said.
Upon further research, she learned that Richer also meets the program’s other qualifications.
“Richer School has a demographic of students who are in need,” she explained. “That means either they’re struggling readers, they may need a mentor in their life, they may come from a household where they don’t have someone able to read to them regularly, or they might have English as a second language.”
The next step was to contact Superintendent Richard Langlois.
“We approached the superintendent in the spring of 2014 and asked if he would be interested in the program beginning in Marlborough,” Winin relayed. “It’s a turnkey operation for the schools; so, of course, he was interested. He even said that he’d prefer if we could eventually get the program in all three elementary schools because he believes in parity.”
Read to a Child serves grades one to four at other locations. The current participating Richer students will continue with the program next school year as second-graders, paired with their same mentors. It’s expected that a group of incoming first-graders will be also be paired with mentors. Winin is hopeful that the program will continue growing locally.
“The goal is to keep the same mentor with the child all the way through fourth grade, so that the bond of trust develops,” she said. “We’re definitely hoping to go to the fourth grade at Richer.”
More local sponsors are needed. Winin visits interested companies and offers prospective mentors a one-hour training. The program also welcomes donations and mentors from small businesses, as well as help from civic groups as readers.
“Small businesses make a donation that’s equivalent to the number of people that they’re sending as mentors,” Winin explained. “Civic groups don’t make a donation; we try to balance it by finding a company that might make a donation, but doesn’t necessarily send readers.”
Winin has seen the program’s success firsthand.
“When the mentor walks in the door every week, the child lights up with a big smile,” she said. “Reading aloud to a child is the single most effective strategy to help struggling readers become more skilled.”
Companies and civic groups interested in participating in Read to a Child can contact Winin at [email protected]. For more information, visit readtoachild.org.