Nihitha Nelakudity, Vice President of the Connecticut Chapter
“Mom, I really want to go to India, I miss my grandparents so much”. Every weekend I ask to travel to India to see my grandparents. The grandparents that lived with me for 10 years and the grandparents that raised me up before returning to their hometown. They helped me grow into the person I am today. They motivated me to try new things and always pushed me to persevere. Most of all, they made me understand how important it is to serve my community and give back in any way I can. So I thought and thought for a year….
Some of my ideas while I was brainstorming include going to the old-aged home shelter and playing games with the elderly. I could make sandwiches for the homeless shelter. I could make a field day type of thing outdoors over the summer with young kids.
But there was one problem. There was a pandemic going on. The Covid 19 Pandemic. So I really had to dig deep into something I could do without interacting with others face to face as well as something I had an interest in. I got it, tutoring was the perfect idea and in specific in the field of math, a subject I really enjoy.
I started to do some research on ways I could tutor and what it had involved before I got a phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to join this organization called Teens Tutor Teens. This came at the perfect timing because during the pandemic it has been harder for kids to learn and understand topics. So I thought of this as an opportunity to step up and tutor as many students as I could. I tutored around 50 hours during the fall season and hope to continue to increase these numbers as the seasons go by.
As the vice president of the Connecticut chapter, I have learned so much about leadership and how to communicate with others. I have learned how to strategically recruit more tutors and how to reach out for students. I have learned how to make a detailed website and organize information in a website.
The skills that I have gained through Teens Tutor Teens has helped me throughout many other clubs, hobbies and organizations that I take part in. These clubs, hobbies and organizations include debate, softball, Interact Community Service, Tri-M(Musical Honor Society), Kumon, Ace-IT(a tutoring organization I created prior to joining TTT), as well as many other programs.
I can’t wait to continue my journey through TTT and learn so many new life skills. I am hoping to help more and more individuals as the years go on and with tutoring I am ready to make many new friendships and form strong relationships throughout the journey.
