Students at Saint Louis University often look for ways to branch out and help other people. Although this sometimes stems from the need to fulfill service requirements, SLU students, as members of the Jesuit tradition, often have an innate desire to help others. An example of this is the newly created Karen House tutoring program.

Karen House is a battered women’s shelter in St. Louis that provides a temporary home for women and their families. This organization focuses on giving women control over their lives and helping them get back on their feet. Karen House provides an environment in which residents work together to perform all the tasks needed to live comfortably in their community.

Until two years ago there was a program at SLU that focused on spending time with the children living in the Karen House community. Unfortunately, the people running the program were unable to continue their work.

Junior Luke Bruner has worked with many tutoring programs in the past. He first became involved with the Karen House community in January 2004 during an Urban Plunge program offered at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., where he was a student. Since being here at SLU, he heard that Karen House’s previous program had ended and felt like he could do something about it.

“I felt inspired to start it up again, since I had seen how much good it had done two years previously,” Bruner said.

Bruner put up 600 fliers in early January and was not expecting more than six people to show up to the first meeting, which was held in Quotations coffee shop on Jan. 25. He was pleasantly surprised when around 30 people attended.

“All the students were excited and ready to get involved, and I was excited just to have so many people there!” said Bruner. “I think the prospect of being able to directly help others and really show the results of such work is very appealing, and played a major role in that type of turnout.”

Students like freshman Clare Scott were enthusiastic about starting work with the kids at Karen House.

“At first the kids were really difficult; they didn’t want to listen, and they acted like they had other places to be,” said Scott, “but it’s been rewarding to build a relationship with them over the weeks, letting them know we are just there to help.”

Russel Brewer also thought that the children were a little nervous during the first few visits, but agreed that “the best part has been being able to make connections with the kids.” Brewer has a lot of service experience under his belt, thanks to his involvement with Micah House, but he really wanted to branch out of the type of work he had been doing.

“I had been working with an elderly lady the past few years, and have just always wanted to work with younger kids,” Brewer said.

The program is going smoothly so far, and Karen House is equally pleased with the progression.

“It is definitely helping the kids; the little ones brighten up when we walk through the door,” said Scott. “They’re so excited to have someone to play with.”

Although the program is going very well, Bruner sees this as just a starting point. In the initial proposal placed to Karen House, Bruner wrote, “it is also the intention of this proposal to serve as a scalable model for other tutoring locations in the greater St. Louis area, providing a plan which could be followed by persons with limited experience in the field of charitable work and tutoring.”

For now, though, said Bruner, “The kids seem to really enjoy learning, and having positive role models to look up to seems to make a difference in their behavior and attitude.” And those role models are enjoying themselves equally as much-as Scott said, “I’m hooked.”