Mission
EVkids empowers underserved Boston youth with the skills and confidence needed to realize their potential.
Through the weekly after-school Tutoring Program, annual Camp in the summer, and the College Success Project for high schoolers, EVkids provides a continuum of services to help underserved Boston students in grades 3-12 succeed in school and life by systematically strengthening core academic skills, organizational habits, and other life skills.
By building a caring community of support, where success is expected and achievable together, we believe our EVkids and their mentors will become integral parts of a more socially just and compassionate world.
History
EVkids is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, founded as “Earthen Vessels” in 1980 by Marie-Claude and Brian Thompson as a faith-based response to childhood poverty in Boston. Rooted in the Catholic tradition of social justice, the Thompsons began by bringing small groups of underserved Boston youth to Vermont each summer to spend two weeks at a time hiking, swimming, and learning to build a safe and supportive community together. In 1985, EVkids added a Boston-based tutoring and mentoring program during the school year to address the stark academic challenges faced by underserved children and teens in Boston. That first school year, EVkids matched eight Dorchester students 1-on-1 with college tutors recruited through the Harvard Catholic Center, and fostered a robust community of support through year-round family engagement and professional education advocacy. With additional partnerships at other local colleges including Boston College, Tufts University, UMass Boston, and Northeastern University by the 2021-2022 school year EVkids had expanded to 130 academic mentoring pairs meeting once a week after school at four EVkids tutoring sites in Dorchester and Roxbury (and one permanently virtual site) to build their academic and personal skills. Through the College Success Program, up to 35 EVkids graduates are matched with 1-on-1 mentors providing guidance and support as they work toward earning their degree.
The original name “Earthen Vessels” was inspired by scripture: “we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) As co-founder Marie-Claude describes it, we are all like “earthen vessels,” that is, we are imperfect, fragile, perhaps unremarkable containers, but we are meant to be filled with light and love. For the children and youth who are tutored, this means academic achievement and personal empowerment for a bright future. For the college mentors, it means that they share their skills as best they can, and trust that the seeds they plant will sprout and bear fruit beyond them.
The holistic, relationship-based ethos of the organization continues to be at the heart of the service model. Students and tutors alike are surrounded with opportunities to be creative, to stretch themselves, to reflect on their experiences, and to be of service to others, humble and secure in the knowledge that they are important parts of a community that is greater than the sum of its parts. Together we strive to create a more socially just and compassionate world, one student, one camper, one mentor, one counselor at a time.
