By Cameron Ruh

Editor’s Notes: For the privacy of the Oak Grove students, their names have been changed.

It’s the highlight of my week. A busload of eager elementary school students runs off the bus and into their cafeteria, smiles covering their faces. As they see the Collegiate volunteers, they run to give us hugs and high fives and share news from the past week. I see many of the children I have gotten to know and love. Equally excited, we all find a seat. 

At Oak Grove – Bellemeade Elementary School on the South side of Richmond, approximately fifteen Collegiate Upper School students spend many of their Saturday mornings volunteering at Saturday Literacy Academy, a weekly tutoring opportunity for Hispanic children in the surrounding area. 

The elementary school educates approximately 700 students from the Oak Grove and Bellemeade neighborhoods. Currently, violence and poverty are pressing issues there, and Public School Review states that 97% of Oak Grove students are eligible for free or reduced cost lunch, which is usually the national benchmark for measuring poverty at a school. The school’s test scores on the Virginia Department of Education School Quality Profiles fall well below state averages, with a reading proficiency score at 44 and math performance score at 58, compared to the state averages of 78 and 82, respectively. 

In 2003, Robert Argabright II, an Oak Grove neighborhood community activist and volunteer better known as Mr. Bob, was contacted by a friend at Trinity Methodist Church to visit the Oak Grove Bellemeade School as part of the Micah Initiative, a partnership between faith-based communities and elementary schools in Richmond. Argabright, just beginning his retirement from the Chesapeake Energy Corporation, sought a fulfilling volunteer experience. He had no previous experience in education, but he soon became a volunteer tutor for two 2nd graders, helping them learn how to read. 

His role changed in 2013 when a new Oak Grove school was built. “At our former Oak Grove school, we only had five Hispanic children,” explained Argabright. When the new school was built, because of rezoning, “we would have 150 Hispanic students, and nobody who even spoke Spanish.”

At this time, Collegiate School entered the picture. “I wanted to start a Saturday program for the Hispanic students, so I reached out to all the private schools, but Collegiate was the one who came aboard,” said Argabright. 

Upper School Spanish teacher Esperanza Soria-Nieto and her daughter Adriana Soria-Hawkinson (‘15), an 8th Grader at the time, started visiting the school and spending time with the students. “We did arts and crafts and games and took them to museums and parks. We worked on building a relationship with them.” Soria-Nieto explained that, “Little by little, we started getting more Collegiate students to participate.”

Saturday Academy gradually became more structured as more Collegiate students got involved. College volunteers from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) began to participate in the program as well. Up until the state shut down schools due to COVID-19, every Saturday from 9:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m., participants took part in a number of activities to promote learning and strong relationships between students and volunteers.

The children are dropped at the school by Mr. Bob, who also serves as the bus driver. They find seats at tables in the cafeteria, separated by grade level. Collegiate and VCU volunteers help them complete packets and worksheets, mainly focusing on math or English. During this first hour, students practice skills that they learn during the week at school. They work diligently as the volunteers guide them and answer questions. 

When they are told to line up to go outside, the children eagerly gather by the door. They excitedly run outside to the Oak Grove playground, ready to run and play with the volunteers. There are also activities such as art club, cooking club, and ukulele club. Older Oak Grove students who participate in these clubs stay inside at this time, often joined by Collegiate volunteers. 

For the last hour of Saturday Academy, the students participate in other activities, such as a themed craft. This is also a time when students can find books and read them with the volunteers. 

“The kids have a lot of fun,” says Soria-Nieto. She explained her favorite moments from Saturday Academy are “when they ask if they can come back tomorrow.” She tells of one student who told her, “I don’t like school, but I like your school. This is a fun school.”

She explained the importance that the Oak Grove community has in her life: “I don’t know what I would do without these kids. My life has found a sense of direction. I realized that it’s not just about me and my family—it’s about them.”

Like Soria-Nieto, the Collegiate students who volunteer with the Saturday Academy program often describe their experience with gratitude. 

Grace Marchetti (‘21) claims, “I’m not a morning person, at all, but when I see the children’s faces on Saturday mornings, it makes it all worth it. Whether it’s coloring, reading, playing on the playground, or just chatting, I’ve formed lasting connections that have taught me a lot about myself.” 

Another frequent volunteer, Maggie Bowling (‘22), says, “Oak Grove is special to me because once you build a relationship with a certain child, you get to see their face light up when you see them every Saturday. They share so much love with us, and I always feel loved when I go to just be with those kids and be someone that they can look up to and know that they are loved by.”

Anastasia Redmond (‘21) describes her experience: “Oak Grove has given me a passion for learning and speaking Spanish and has made me realize that I want to be a teacher when I’m older. Some of the kids at Saturday Academy have been through more than we would ever know, and being able to support a lot of them with their transitions either through elementary or middle school, or from another country to America, is incredibly rewarding. However, I am convinced that we as Collegiate students learn more from them than they do from us. We teach them their ABC’s while they teach us to be grateful, not to judge, how to be selfless, and how to be a good friend, cousin, or neighbor.”

As the founder of the program, Mr. Bob is extremely grateful for what his role has given him. When asked what inspires him daily, Argabright answered, “the progress of the children… I feed off their love.” He also opened up about what he has gained from the students: “I have lost two of my own children. When I was going through my own tough times, the students ministered to me.”

Argabright continued, “I get as much from them as they do from me. A lot of people go to church on Sunday, but I feel like I am able to go to church every day. I am able to live my faith.”

For Argabright, the students of Oak Grove – Bellemeade Elementary have aided him to find his purpose. “I had never worked in education. When I retired, I had been married at nineteen and working all my life. Retirement did not come easy, but I started doing volunteer work.” He continued, “My pastor had been saying that we are all part of God’s plan. When I was asked to start a full time job at Oak Grove – Bellemeade, I began to think that maybe I am part of God’s plan. It was a terribly humbling situation for me.”

“This has become more of a ministry than a volunteer duty. It has been a sixteen-year road, no grand plan, but it has all been focused on this community, and I have never taken my eye off of it,” says Argabright.

Soria-Nieto claims, “Mr. Bob is my hero. He came from the corporate world—a businessman with a completely different life. And now, he dedicates over forty hours a week to these kids. He always knows who to talk to, who to call. He’s so humble, but he always gets it done.”

Argabright still hopes that the Saturday Academy program continues to grow. “What concerns me,” he explains, “is that I am soon to be 78 years old… I started looking at all the things I’m doing and I wondered, if I got hit by a truck, what would happen?”

He drives the church van to bring the students to Saturday Academy, but he is involved in their lives in so many other ways. Argabright explains that he drives Mariana, a middle school student who attends Saturday Academy, to tutoring every Wednesday. He tells a story about her: “When I first met Mariana, I could tell she had vision problems. I took her to the Virginia Eye Institute to find out that she had been bitten by a spider when she was two years old. They had treated her with some hard drugs, and it caused her to lose some of her eyesight. I took her to get glasses, and it was the first time she was able to see people’s faces. Seeing her face light up… you really couldn’t ask for anything more.”

David, a current high schooler at George Wythe High School who also attends Saturday Academy, says, “I don’t have words to describe Mr. Bob… He has helped me in a spectacular way; whenever there are opportunities for study, he is always on the lookout to help me, and that is something that I really appreciate.”

“Saturday Academy is a wonderful place where they accept all children and people, regardless of their origin and nationality, and that is something that has a lot of value,” he explains. “When I attend Saturday Academy, I always practice my English with the wonderful volunteers who are always available to help others, and I always like to meet and make new friends.”

One of these lasting friendships David has made is with Collegiate’s Liam Ryan (‘21), who began to volunteer at Saturday Academy this year. Ryan describes his experience:  “I’ve recently started to get a lot more involved in Oak Grove because of the relationships I’ve built with some of the kids. I’ve helped with the kids that are closer to my age, and building friendships with them means a lot to me… I now text and FaceTime with [David] once or twice a week, where I help him with math, reading, and writing, while he helps me out with Spanish.”

At his high school, David has struggled largely because of “racism from other students” and the “poor conditions of the facilities” at his school. For him, learning English has been his greatest difficulty throughout his education in the United States; “it is a very difficult barrier to reach, but not impossible,” he says. 

David, who immigrated from Honduras when he was fifteen years old, says that his family is a “great help for me and my reason to get ahead in this great country.” However, he describes his home life as “not so good, since we are always worried about our immigration status.”

“So many of the students were born in the United States,” explains Argabright. “But especially for immigrant students such as David and Mariana, it is extremely difficult for them. They live in communities that only speak Spanish, so they only need to be able to speak English at school.”

Soria-Nieto comments, “so many of these families are consistently focused on their kids’ education… But when the proper support isn’t given, families will never be able to escape the cycle of poverty.”

Argabright reveals that “two-thirds of our Hispanic students drop out of high school. They want to follow in their parent’s footsteps.” He further explains, “If their father is a bricklayer, they see that they don’t need to graduate high school to be a bricklayer.”

With the outbreak of COVID-19, circumstances have certainly changed for the students of Saturday Literacy Academy. With the closing of Virginia public schools mandated by Governor Ralph Northam, Oak Grove – Bellemeade school and Saturday Academy are tentatively scheduled to restart in the fall of 2020. 

Soria-Nieto explained, “I am still unsure of what is going to happen to the kids.” Because many of their households do not have adequate technology to easily participate in online schooling opportunities, “Mr. Bob is trying to distribute tablets and make sure that their houses have internet.” She added, “Verizon is also offering them free internet for two months.”

For some older alumni of the Saturday Academy Program, Soria-Nieto is working on a new tutoring opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We would match up these older students with a Collegiate student,” she explained. Over videochat, Collegiate students could help them with schoolwork while building a relationship with them. Soria-Nieto added, “now that they are not attending school, they would only be speaking Spanish at home. This would be an important opportunity for them to keep practicing their English.”

Especially during this uncertain time, Soria-Nieto explains that the students need to be given proper support. “They are capable of achieving everything that Collegiate students can… the difference is support.”

Giving support to the children is exactly what Saturday Academy does best. There, they feel important and focused on. They see that their education is the priority. And the relationships that are built along the way are genuine and meaningful.

Soria-Nieto explained to me, “the Oak Grove students often find Americans from outside their communities to be unapproachable. When you guys go and share with them, they see that we are all equal. They see that you guys are kids, too.”

And we, as Collegiate students, are taught empathy in the most powerful way. As Soria-Nieto puts it, “we hear about immigration in the news, but now we know who they are. They have a face, they have a story. They were born in a different place, but they are just like us.”

I’ve now met Kindergarteners who have traveled on crowded buses to cross the border into the country; 5th graders who work physical labor jobs to provide for their families. But these children, many of which have been through more hardship than I can imagine, play tag with the widest smiles on their faces and build paper airplanes with immense excitement. 

Building relationships with the Oak Grove students has been the greatest privilege of my high school career. As disheartening as it is to not be able to see the students because of COVID-19, I am extremely grateful to have next year to participate in the program. 

Collegiate also offers the opportunity for students to participate in the  Strengthening Teens Academically and Recreationally (STAR) Program, where Upper Schoolers tutor immigrant and refugee students at Quioccasin Middle School. Unlike Saturday Academy, STAR takes place after school and counts as a sports waiver for Upper Schoolers. I participated in the STAR program this spring, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the middle schoolers and helping them with their homework. 

In my time volunteering at Saturday Academy, I have been able to see the program expand as more children and more Collegiate and VCU volunteers have joined. This expansion is projected to continue as the Hispanic population in Richmond grows. According to the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, Richmond’s population is projected to be one-third Hispanic by 2040. 

As more Hispanic students start to join the program, there will also be a need for more Collegiate volunteers. Soria-Nieto and Argabright both expressed their hope that there will be more consistency with the volunteers so that there can be stronger relationships between them and the Oak Grove students. “The children are disappointed when they don’t see their mentors here,” says Argabright. Over time, as meaningful connections form between Oak Grove students and volunteers, the impacts made are lasting and irreplaceable.