An army of volunteers marches each day into Lawrence public school classrooms.
Some are celebrities Kansas University coach Roy Williams and his players have set basketballs aside to serve as guest readers while others are more or less anonymous.
There's no formal accounting of the number of volunteers or the amount of time they collectively devote to schools, said Julie Boyle, the district's communications director.
She said district schools and nonprofit organizations work hard to match up a volunteer's goals with a school's needs.
"We would never be at the point where we wouldn't need additional people," Boyle said.
Frequently, adults directly contact school principals, teachers or PTO leaders to get involved in volunteer work. But that's not the only way to reach out to public schools.
Here are volunteer opportunities:
Lawrence Business/Education Partnership, 110 McDonald Drive, 832-5000, Ext. 107. Businesses or organizations can develop a partnership with schools to assist with the academic or personal growth of students.
YouthFriends, 2518 Ridge Court, 842-5006. People volunteering in this mentoring program can work with groups of students or one-on-one with a student. It's a minimum of one hour a week.
Junior Achievement, Topeka, (785) 235-3700. The program educates students to improve the quality of their lives by learning about free-enterprise business and economics.
"The volunteers get to be around kids," said Tom Bracciano, the district's director of facilities and operations. "It changes their outlook."
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.