January 16: The Reading Partners

I spend my lunch breaks once a week reading to an elementary school girl at lunchtime to foster confidence, reading abilities, and one-on-one investments in an at-risk youth. She's quite the handful. But occasionally, so affectionate and sweet that it melts my heart.

She has a friend in the program, and after the bell rings and we finish our reading log and pack up our our things, they usually shout at each other, run and collide in a hug and then trip over their feet out the door and into the hall and off to their classroom. That's what happened today, and I put my purse together and was saying goodbye to the program director, when my reading partner and her friend come back, arm-in-arm, to the room.

"We have something we want to give you!" they shouted.

"Okay! What is it?" I asked, leaning down to them.

"A hug!" they shouted in unison, and we all hugged each other together. It melted me a little bit.

Sometimes, we don't see the fruits of our labor immediately. But that's never to say that it's not having an effect and working.