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Volpe Journal Summer 2000Previous Section | Contents | Next Section Volpe Volunteers Wrap up Another Great YearOn Monday, May 22, the Volpe Center Community1 was recognized by the Cambridge School Volunteers, Inc. (CSV) for its outstanding contributions to the Cambridge public schools. CSV is a nonprofit organization that serves as the liaison between the business community and the Cambridge public schools. They support businesses that wish to set up volunteer educational outreach programs by helping them develop programs, train volunteers, and coordinate with teachers and school officials. The volunteers were also honored by Cambridge Mayor Anthony Gallucio and Cambridge School Superintendent Bobbie D'Alessandro. At the beginning of the ceremony, Audrey Melick, Executive Director of the Cambridge School Volunteers, referred to Larry Gregory, a seventh grade student from the Robert F. Kennedy elementary school, who was spending the day in Washington, DC, at the invitation of US Department of Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater. She described the highlights of the trip and the long-lasting impact it will have on this young man. (See Sidebar)
The Volpe Center was one of twelve recipients of the CSV Corporate Team Award as a result of its very successful "Lunch Buddies" Program. This program matched Volpe Center volunteers one-on-one to every second and third grader at the Kennedy School. The Volpe "Lunch Buddies" went to the classrooms every other week throughout the school year to read aloud to their reading partners. The program doubled in size in just its second year and is the largest CSV corporate team project ever. Because of this program, the Volpe Center was also the sole recipient of the Margret E. Rey Literacy Award 2000. This award was established two years ago in honor of the late Margret E. Rey, one of CSV's most generous benefactors and author of the Curious George books. This award recognizes exemplary volunteer programs that address the early literacy priorities of the Cambridge public schools. The Volpe Center, through the efforts of Lynn Murray, Chief of the Communications and Technology Outreach Division, was also instrumental in encouraging the development of the Genzyme Corporation's Reading Buddies program at the Maynard School in Cambridge.
In addition, Volpe Center engineer Dick Chutter was given the Mack I. Davis award for his extraordinary contributions as a volunteer, first for two years as a volunteer in the mini-course program for seventh graders at the Kennedy Elementary School, and then for the last three years as a volunteer at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. One of Dick's achievements last year was implementing a challenging transportation-related project for the students. This project taught a pre-engineering class about transportation while encouraging them to work on their problem-solving skills by addressing real transportation issues. Further, in the last two years, Dick has successfully involved other Volpe employees with the school by signing them up as advisors to the Science Olympiad team. This team went on to win first place in the Massachusetts competition last year. This year, he made a video chronicling the experiences of the 2000 Olympiad team, a copy of which was given to each team member. At the end of May, after 12 years at the Volpe Center, Dick Chutter retired. 1The Volpe Center Community includes US Department of Transportation employees from the Volpe Center; Federal Highway Administration; Federal Transit Administration; Federal Railroad Administration; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Office of the Inspector General; and Office of Civil Rights; and contractor personnel from Computer Science Corporation; EG&G Technical Services, Inc.; Planners Collaborative, Inc.; Cambridge Systematics, Inc.; and W.T. Chen. Back to Story |
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