By Tadelech Mengesha

In the current U.S. economy, more and more U.S. citizens are beginning to live lives that resemble that of third-world people. Luckily, the United States is fortunate enough to establish homeless shelters for people in need; but even these are sometimes not adequate enough to give these families opportunities to fully rise out of poverty. However, United States is even luckier to have people like Calla Hales.

Calla is a junior at Hofstra University, who like many other college students joined a club. She participated in an event that took freshmen to a local homeless shelter to volunteer and interact with kids whose families had to stay at the shelter for a significant length of time. But this one experience evolved into a university-wide movement. At the homeless shelter, Calla became attached to the kids there and their devastating stories. A majority of these kids were below their age reading level and a good portion of them could barely read and speak at an age when most kids are well advanced into those categories. Instead of just feeling sympathy, Calla and her partner decided to create a mentorship program that linked students at Hofstra with kids at the shelter. This enabled the college students to be a “big sibling” to the kids and help them with anything from playing simple games to offering life advice.

With this impressive project, Calla participated in the Global Engagement Summit in 2010. Afterwards Calla and her project were never the same. GES was something that Calla could never forget- not that she wants to; Calla said that it was the best experience of her life. Not only did she form long-lasting relationships (some of the people she still talks to weekly), but her project underwent a transformation as well. The project, before GES, was purely a mentorship program- a chance for impoverished kids to be able to spend some time and have fun with college mentors. Yet, GES made Calla realize that she wanted more. Taking into account the immense educational disadvantages these kids had, Calla changed the program into an after-school educational service. Instead of just mentoring, college students provided tutoring with basic reading, writing, and speech skills. Now this program has skyrocketed- with 14 volunteers and dozens of children. GES was an opportunity that Calla will take with her for the rest of her life- something never to be forgotten. Not only did the program grow, but after GES, Calla learned that open-mindedness is a trait that is always necessary in the social justice world. With the experience of GES, Calla’s project will surely have a positive impact on many kids.