Navy Region Mid-Atlantic awarded Training Support Center (TSC) Great Lakes the Personal Excellence Partnership Flagship Award for two of its volunteer programs, during a Nov. 19 ceremony.

Reading Buddies is a program initiated by Fire Controlman 1st Class (SW) Richard Kinnison, a Navy Military Training Instructor (NMTI) and master training specialist coordinator with TSC, which partners TSC Sailors with students from the local Forrestal Elementary School to help with reading, math and other school activities.

"We're reading to students, helping them with their school work and little activities that they allow us to do," Kinnison said.

The idea for the program came from Kinnison following a meeting with his son's teachers and after Kinnison worked to help his son catch up to his peers in the classroom.

"We focused on a lot of areas, and I thought, if I'm putting a lot of time into (my son) maybe there's some other kids at school that don't get the extra attention or their parents might not be doing the same thing," he said.

Reading Buddies began in 2014, but Kinnison said, the plan is to continue the program for as long as possible.
"They were excited to get it back going again this year. It's something that I started last year but it's still going now because it's actually effective," he said.

Yeoman 2nd Class (SW) Richard Matthews, a legal investigator with TSC, volunteered with the Lake County Youth Mentorship Program during 2014 to 2015. During his time there he mentored a 12-year-old boy from Waukegan, Ill., to help him with homework and other areas he was having trouble.

"(We met) once a week for anywhere between two to six hours depending on whatever activity we were doing that week," he said.

As part of the mentorship program Matthews would help with homework, go to dinner together, go to basketball games, go to the beach, or any number of other activities.

"When we started he was failing classes and not really doing well in school. He was getting in trouble a lot. He ended up being on the honor roll at the end of the year," Matthews said. "To me, that's what I wanted to do is to have some sort of impact."

By winning the Mid-Atlantic Region, TSC is entered into the Navy-wide competition. Results from that competition are expected in December.

For more news from Training Support Center, Great Lakes, visit www.navy.mil/.