UC Irvine is home to many different kinds of clubs and organizations that work year-round to provide aid or service to the communities around them. One such organization on campus is Jumpstart.
Jumpstart is a nonprofit organization that operates 57 sites in the United States. There are 66 higher-education institutions that provide Jumpstart programs for 8,000 preschool children; Jumpstart-Irvine has been at UCI for the past three years. The organization relies on college students who go out into Irvine’s neighboring communities, Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, to work with preschoolers after school in an effort to enrich them in their stages of early development.
Members of their corps program typically work 10 to 12 hours a week, four of which are spent in preschools with children from low-income families. Activities within the classroom include ‘circle time,’ group singing, ‘reading time,’ one-on-one sessions, and ‘choice time’ where the children get free play.
‘Even 5 to 10 hours a week of our time just makes such a huge impact on their community,’ said Roxanna Salim, a third-year psychology and social behavior major and Jumpstart volunteer coordinator. Salim, who has been working with Jumpstart since her freshman year at UCI.
‘It’s really wonderful to see this child that you’re working with grow
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