A simple idea between Pope high school students has sparked the creation of a new non-profit, Tutors For Tumors (TFT). The three founders Mateo Weeks, Sean Yan, and Prakash Mitra met in middle school, became friends, helping each other learn and prepare for exams. “Eventually, we took our love of learning and started explaining a concept to our friends or would help a struggling student with a complex math problem,” says co-founder Prakash Mitra. These interactions would soon lead to full-on tutoring sessions with their peers.
“We initially started to tutor our peers as a way of helping ourselves understand the content better while supporting other confused classmates. It wasn’t long after we concluded that there might be a future with our tutoring. Instead of profiting from this tutoring, we wanted to give back to the community that helped us get where we are today,” says Sean Yan, another co-founder of Tutors For Tumors.
So they created a non-profit organization that would tutor kids in the community while giving 100% of the funds to brain research. Why donate their earnings to brain research? As Mateo explains, “A few years ago, my younger cousin suddenly passed away due to a brain aneurysm at just eleven years old. His death took a toll on his parents and brothers. I began to do more research and found out brain aneurysms are one of the least studied phenomena in the medical world. In fact, the federal government only spends two dollars per year on research per person afflicted.”
The TFT tutors offer tutoring in Math, English, Reading, Science, Social Studies, Spanish, and SAT to students from elementary to high school juniors. Tutors For Tumors’ tutors are academically-gifted students at Pope High School. TFT tutors must have at least a 3.9 GPA and are hand-selected to best suit the student’s needs. For more information and/or to book a session, email: tutorbeattumor@gmail.com.
