They all saw the rat scramble over frozen ruts in the empty lot. It had run out from under an abandoned Oldsmobile, scooting past strewn trash and broken bottles.
“I think he lives under there,” suggested an unconcerned Gretchen McKenzie, 20, a Wheaton College sophomore. As McKenzie maneuvered across the same littered lot, she added, “We’ve seen them here before.”
After all, McKenzie is a regular in this Chicago neighborhood. She and up to six fellow Wheaton College students visit weekly during the school year. As volunteers for the LaSalle Street Church tutoring program, the students give time each Wednesday evening to tutor teens from the nearby Cabrini Green housing project.
Wheaton College and LaSalle Street Church, an Evangelical non-denominational church, have been partners in the tutoring project for about 15 years. This is the second year McKenzie has served as Wheaton’s coordinator. She organizes the weekly visits and, as she did this night, drives the group to the city.
Once there, the tutors meet their assigned students in the church’s Fellowship Hall, where they spread out at tables and study from about 6 to 7:15 p.m. This night it’s algebra homework for McKenzie’s student, Tashawna Cooper, 18, a senior at Near North High School.
“You’re going to have to multiply everything like this. See what I’m saying?” McKenzie asked, reviewing a lesson on exponents. As the young women worked, their heads bent over a single math book, McKenzie offered frequent eye contact, smiles and even applause.
“I had faith in you. Yeah, you get exactly that,” McKenzie said, tapping her index finger on Cooper’s correct answer. “See, they get better.”
While McKenzie was referring to Cooper’s algebra struggles, participants in the tutoring program have seen many things get better over the years. Grades. Ambitions. Understanding.
According to Alvin Bibbs, who has been with the program almost from the start, “It was an overwhelming experience learning that there was another life outside the walls we lived in at Cabrini Green.”
Raised in the neighborhood, Bibbs attended the tutoring program as a student and became the first member of his family to graduate from college. Now Bibbs heads the Chicago chapter of Young Life, the Christian ministry that oversees LaSalle’s tutoring program.
Speaking from his Chicago office, Bibbs said the Wheaton College support left him with a lasting impression. “A number of the kids who live in communities like Cabrini, Robert Taylor and others don’t have any clue regarding their future because no one has given them direction or insight,” Bibbs said. “These tutors come in alongside them and care for them, saying, `You can achieve some great things in your life if you begin to discipline yourself and be focused.’ “
Bibbs credits his Christian faith and those who reached out to him with steering him toward his goals. “I had pressures coming from different areas, but definitely from the street,” Bibbs recalled. “I was jumped on and shot at on numerous occasions. And there was just the pressure of wanting to do something different in my life. Today the pressures are different, but the intensity is about the same.”
About 25 high school students attend the Wednesday sessions. In addition to the Wheaton College tutors, members of LaSalle Street Church and other volunteers fill tutoring spots. On this evening, a dozen tutors help 19 teens.
“It varies from year to year how many kids we have,” explained Douglas Colber of Oak Park, an adult volunteer who began his involvement after graduating from Wheaton College. He’s responsible for recruiting adult volunteers and continues to help out in the tutoring program.
Colber, an attorney for ServiceMaster of Lisle, said the program offers two-way benefits. Students succeed, and tutors reap a special pride. Among Colber’s students was William Gates (Bibbs’ brother-in-law), one of the basketball players featured in the film “Hoop Dreams.” This spring, three former students will graduate from Southern Illinois University.
“I do want to see them graduate,” Colber said, hoping he will be able to attend the ceremonies. “It’s wonderful to have someone like that in your past whom you feel proud about and who has really done something for himself.”
In the program, tutors establish a personal relationship with the kids, according to Bibbs. “There’s a long history with Wheaton College, Cabrini and Young Life. We’re really grateful to the Wheaton students for their service and time. It’s a long-lasting relationship that they establish between tutors and kids.”
Back in noisy Fellowship Hall, that kind of bond is being forged between tutor McKenzie and 18-year-old Esther Carroll. This is the second school year McKenzie has been teamed up with Carroll, another senior from Near North High. According to Carroll, the partnership has been a good one.
“The tutoring’s been helpful,” Carroll said, taking a break from studying physics. “And we make new friends.”
From a foundation of friendship, tutors strive to build confidence, trust and achievements. “For me the biggest thing has not been her school work,” McKenzie noted about Carroll. “I think one of the biggest things was when she called me last year in my dorm room. To me that was a really big deal because that meant that she trusted me.” The two even exchanged letters during the summer.
But the tutors are quick to point out that they get an education too. While there are shared interests, the differences between suburban Wheaton and inner-city Chicago are vast. The differences are even greater compared to McKenzie’s hometown of Fayetteville, Ark., and Lewiston, Idaho, where tutor Nate Elliott grew up.
Elliott, a 20-year-old Wheaton College junior, is new this semester to the tutoring program. But he admitted that helping at LaSalle has opened his eyes.
“What struck me was how utterly different their external world is from mine,” Elliott said. “I never had to worry about certain things, like violence, that they have to worry about constantly. It just isn’t an issue in Idaho. It’s almost to the point where I’ve never really thought about the opportunities that I had growing up.”
