FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM AUGUST 27, 2020 • KIDS & EDUCATION • THE QUEENS COURIER 27
kids & education
Courtesy of Jingzhe Weng
(From l. to r.) Jingzhe Weng, Steven Tung and Justin Cao are founders of the L.E.A.F. Program that off ers free tutoring to kids in New York City and across the country.
College Point resident creates free tutoring
program for students across New York City
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
While remote learning throughout the
COVID-19 pandemic has posed some
challenges for children and their parents,
a College Point resident and his friends
are doing what they can to help students
across the city achieve academic success.
Jingzhe Weng, 17, a senior at Th e Bronx
High School of Science, organized a nonprofi
t program called L.E.A.F. with his
friends, Steven Tung and Justin Cao. Th e
program provides free tutoring in academic
subject areas and volunteer hours
for students in New York City.
Th e L.E.A.F. program stands for Love
for learning, Educating others, Assisting
the community and Finding your passion.
Th eir goal is to connect tutors to students
not only in New York City, but also across
the United States.
“Our program is completely studentrun,”
Weng said. “We select tutors from
high school and college to tutor students
from grades K-12, and we currently off er
sessions in English and Chinese.”
Th e program currently has 20-plus students
and tutors, according to Weng, and
provides customized scheduling based on
the students’ own accords.
Daily sessions are held in the morning
from 8 to 10 a.m., in the aft ernoon from
noon to 2 p.m. and in the evening from
4 to 6 p.m. Each session is about 30 minutes
to two hours, depending on the tutor
and student.
Tutors can connect with their students
through video calling apps such as Zoom,
Skype, Discord and Messenger, since the
program is operating remotely to comply
with social distancing guidelines.
Weng, who immigrated with his family
from China at the age of 6, said he experienced
great diffi culty learning since they
didn’t speak English.
“It was really diffi cult to do school work
and communicate with my teachers due
to the language barrier,” Weng said. “My
mom and I would sit together and decipher
my homework with a dictionary. I
was also able to meet friends who could
translate and help me adapt to this new
environment.”
Weng said he wants their tutors and students
to have a friendship, helping to create
a positive teacher-student relationship.
“We realized the limitations of online
schooling and there are many students
out there who struggle with it,” Weng
said. “We just want to help students better
themselves and their education providing
them with a head start for the following
school year.”
Th e L.E.A.F. Program team can be
reached via email: leafprogramusa@
gmail.com or check out their website.
“We just want to help students better
themselves and their education providing
them with a head start for the following
school year.”
— Jingzhe Weng
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