Why You should Volunteer with Racing Readers?

By Ramat Abdulrazaq

About Jordan

Jordan Jacob, a second year Behavioural Neurosciences major in the faculty of Health science, shares her story as a volunteer with Racing Readers. She is a member of SFU track athlete team and a sprinter. She engages in 100m, 200m and 400m. She loves and enjoys working with children and plans to work with them in the future.

Why Racing Readers?

From Jordan’s past experience with summer camping, she knew she loved working with children. Her goal, as of now, is to become a doctor who specializes in pediatrics and neurological development.  As soon as she saw the opportunity knock at her door (through email), she knew immediately this is something she wanted to do. She saw it as an opportunity to combine both her passion of working with children and even track and field, which she never expected.

How did Jordan combine her passions into one goal?

Jordan shares an exciting time for her when she was entrusted with a responsibility of creating a program that can improve the children physical literacy skills. She says as an SFU athlete and through prior years of engaging with the sport, she has had tons of coaching opportunities specifically with youth and children. Therefore, she used her past skills and experiences to create a video for the kids where she led them through drills and exercises relating specifically to sprinting and track and field. 

Jordan’s thoughts on developing a physical activity program.

It definitely showed Jordan the challenges and difficulties that come into play when trying to change the curriculum to an online format compared to face to face. She definitely felt silly talking to herself while videoing the exercises in comparison to coaching a class in person! However, one must realize that while it may feel awkward and silly in the moment, you want to make it fun and engaging.  This way children want to participate and follow along with you. She believes this will definitely help her with future endeavors.

How has Racing Readers impacted Jordan?

Jordan says she is glad to have experience with Racing Readers despite the negative impacts Covid-19 has had on the world. This is because she and her other SFU members were able to create a safe space for the children where they could learn and have fun. For a small portion of the day we get to reduce any of the stressors or difficulties the kids were going through. Being able to know that we are positively impacting their lives in such a difficult time, was an invaluable experience in itself.

Thinking about Racing Readers now?

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Be ready to transform your life into an incredible new and take your experiences to a greater height with Racing Readers! Have fun with your experience!!