Daily Points of Light Award Winner: Tiffany James

Daily Points of Light award winner Tiffany James has been a tutor at Callaway Elementary School since 2013. Not only is she the special assistant to the executive director and public relations manager of the Parking Authority and a mother of three young children, but she’s also a twice weekly tutor with Reading Partners and goes out of her way to reach us with any new ideas and connections that can help our mission. Crystal, the third grade student Tiffany tutors has shown significant progress, increasing her rate of learning, and taking great strides toward reading on her grade level.

Tiffany first learned about Reading Partners through an executive order by Baltimore’s Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, which grants City employees two hours each week to tutor with Reading Partners through her Third Grade Reads initiative. Mayor Rawlings-Blake says,

I’m proud of each City employee who has become a Reading Partners volunteer. I hope they will reach out to their co-workers and invite them to become a Reading Partners volunteer. I also hope other large employers will follow our lead and support their employees to become Reading Partners volunteers.

Tiffany did not hesitate to heed the Mayor’s call to action. Her enthusiasm for Reading Partners led her to recruit both her supervisor and seven others from their department. Tiffany’s supervisor enjoyed tutoring so much that he has accepted a place on our Tutor Advisory Board, providing even more support to Reading Partners. Tiffany however, did not stop there.

She regularly meets with Reading Partners staff to brainstorm new, creative ways to engage the community and serve our students. Tiffany took the lead on organizing a city wide book drive, collecting books across all of the City owned parking garages, resulting in 2,413 books that the Parking Authority boxed and delivered to our school sites. She also works to connect us to new organizations, schools and City departments. We’ve received a huge response from these connections- inspiring new school partnerships including a partnership with the labor commissioner who has pledged support to Reading Partners by organizing another book drive. We are honored to have her as a tutor and advocate.

Congratulations on your award Tiffany!