“I love watching students learn, seeing their faces light up as they discover something new," says Kathi Saage, who has been a volunteer tutor with Saint Joseph Ballet since the inception of the tutoring program in 2000.  "The education program at Saint Joseph Ballet is phenomenal and a very important part of its mission to strengthen the self esteem, self discipline, and sense of accomplishment in the students it serves.

"Over the years I have developed wonderful relationships with the students I've helped and nothing beats the joy I get when one of my students proudly shows me an “A” paper or tells me she's raised her grade.  When I was first asked to be a tutor, I was a bit nervous.  I'd been out of school longer than most of these kids have been alive.  Fractions, algebra, earth science, grammar – all of it came back fairly readily.  And if I don't know how to do something, then I become an example to my student of how to figure it out.  I want the students to understand that there's always a way to find the answer.  Just because they don't know it doesn't mean they can't know it. 

It's a rare session when I don't learn something new.  One day I find myself helping a student research the pros and cons of school uniforms, while another day maybe its research for an in-depth report on the state of Connecticut or helping a student understand the formula for acceleration or velocity."