Helping Kids Read for 30 Years

AARP Foundation Experience Corps celebrates an anniversary

Elise Ceyral,

AARP

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En español

Published April 29, 2025

an older adult and elementary school child high five while sitting at desks in a classroom

Student Greyson Smith celebrates a milestone with tutor Karima Amin at Dr. Lydia T. Wright School of Excellence in Buffalo, New York, in 2023.

Lauren Petracca for AARP Foundation

Laurie Bowers, 73, owes a lot to being a good reader. “Not everyone needs a college degree, but everyone needs to be able to read, write and communicate,” Bowers says. A former report technician for the police department, Bowers has been teaching reading to students in Buffalo, New York, for six years as a volunteer with AARP Foundation Experience Corps.

Launched in 1995, the program pairs elementary school students with older adults with one goal: improve the kids’ reading skills before the end of third grade.

“If people don’t know how to read, that limits their ability to gain an education, to have an economically sustainable job and to retire with success and financial stability,” says Mioshi J. Moses, vice president of volunteer programs at AARP Foundation. Research shows that children who can’t read at grade level by fourth grade are four times more likely not to graduate from high school than their peers.

Experience Corps volunteers hold biweekly, one-on-one tutoring sessions in 18 communities across the U.S. The numbers are impressive. During the 2023–24 school year, 1,284 volunteers helped 3,659 kids become better readers before the end of third grade.

The volunteers describe rewarding experiences. “I have a little girl that I have worked with in the library, and the library has a cart of discarded books so that the kids can take them,” says Barbara Sundust, 77, from Pinal County, Arizona. “Almost every time we have reading together, before she leaves, she wants to go to that ‘discarded’ cart and take a book so that she can have a library at home.”

Stephanie Adams, 68, says, “I’m teaching now in Stanfield, Arizona, which is a farming town, and a lot of those kids are the only people in their family who speak English. So they’re learning to read in a new language. They’re learning to interpret for their parents. And they have me there as cheerleader.”

Learn more about volunteering opportunities with Experience Corps or find other ways AARP can help you volunteer in your community:

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