There are numerous volunteer opportunities at the Fletcher Maynard. Meet Mick, one of our longest serving Genzyme Reading Buddies.
Mick has been serving as a Genzyme Reading Buddy at the FMA for seven years. He first got involved with the program after he’d been at Genzyme for about a year, when he came across a flyer about the volunteer opportunities. Volunteer for an hour a day sounded like a fabulous opportunity to give back to the community that houses his employer. Each week a bus picks him and his colleagues up from Genzyme and brings them to the FMA where they read grade-level books with their “little buddy” in one of the FMA classrooms. While Mick and his colleagues do most of the reading early each semester, Mick found that by the end of the semester the students are doing most of the reading. Indeed, although our FMA students love to be read to, Mick found that they loved reading to their adult buddies even more!
Over the years Mick has been able to build great reading-relationships with many FMA students. He enjoys his hour a week at the FMA and believes that he gets as much, if not more, out of the reading hour than the students. In describing the experience Mick suggested that “you get to help someone out and have fun”! But because Mick has been at the school for so many years he also gets the added bonus of running into his buddies from previous years when he visits the school. Again, in his words, “(when) walking in or out of the school, I’ll see a kid from years back and they’ll say hello. It feels great that they remember you!”
Mick currently works as a project manager and business analyst at Genzyme. Before coming to Genzyme Mick worked in various companies in the financial services industry. If you would like to volunteer or know of a company or organization that may be interested in getting involved with the FMA please contact
Uche Amaechi or
Phyllis Newton at 617.349.6589.