Volunteer Profile: Marie Schmittroth

“The lady’s here,” a little boy announces as he plops his big backpack down on a table and pulls out a handful of slightly crumpled worksheets.

The “lady” is Marie Schmittroth, and she’s at our Kids First Family Shelter for Homework Club. “Every Tuesday from 3 to 5,” Marie says, “I’m there. And every Tuesday is different.”  Last week was heavy on adding and subtracting fractions.  This week may bring California history, vocabulary words, spelling drills, times tables or an art project.

“They just need to hear ‘You can do it,’ most of the time” Marie says.  “I can help them feel capable. And when you feel capable, then you want to do your homework.”

“That was fast,” she tells a fifth-grader who’s just completed a long word problem. “And that’s right. You figured out that they just threw those extra numbers in to keep things interesting.”

“You’ve got that decimal in the right place,” she tells another. “Now, how much money does that make?”

“Good, good, good.” That’s the constant refrain from Marie, and it’s the refrain that keeps kids focused on their work, confident that they can do it.

Marie’s been a fixture of our children’s program for years, providing tutoring and childcare. Her first day with us was “overwhelmingly toddlers,” she says. “It was the most stunning thing to see little kids who are so alive and open and coming into who they are.  I fell in love with toddler care.”

A highlight for her from her time at COTS is her relationship with a little 8-year-old boy we’ll call “Benjamin.” Benjamin is non-verbal and highly sensitive. For his mom to attend a class, we needed a one-on-one companion for him—someone who could take him out of the childcare room if things got too raucous or overwhelming. Marie and Benjamin spent two-and-a-half hours every Monday night just wandering around the San Antonio High School campus, with Benjamin pulling Marie by the hand and stopping every now and then to examine something: a section of chain link fence, a soda can, a leaf, a plastic toy.  He frequently waited for Marie’s reaction before moving on or taking another look at something.

“To slow down and be able to quietly connect with him was lovely,” Marie says. She stays in touch with Benjamin and his mom, who have been in their own rental housing for years.

Marie also treasures the relationships she’s made with other kids—especially the kids who challenge her or are hard to reach.  “As a person who had a childhood with a lot of upheaval, I don’t come to this thinking that the kids are going to be all light and sunshine and laughter,” Marie says. “I like building relationships and trust.”

“It’s important for everybody to know they’re worth somebody’s time and that they’re valued. It’s a gift to me that I can help someone know they have worth and value.”