BEAVERTON, Ore. — Summer is here and parents still looking for fun and educational opportunities for young kids may have an opportunity through a program run by students for students.
Kundana Addala is 12 years old and will be starting 7th grade at Stoller Middle School this fall. She said in the summer of 2020, after finishing 5th grade, she started a nonprofit called Math4Chance.
“It basically started because I kinda wanted to help the community […] and I really wanted to do something and also wanted to interact with younger kids. So I just started this by myself with a simple WhatsApp message,” said Kundana.
She and seven other students teach subjects like math, art, or even biology to kids in 1st through 4th grades.
“We have around 30, 40, 50-ish, that many students like in total, with all of our classes and sessions,” Kundana said.
One of those students is Blair Schaeffer-Bisht’s son, Logan.
“When he started taking classes with Kundana, he was just in kindergarten actually, so now he finished first grade,” said Schaeffer-Bisht.
She said during the pandemic, Kundana’s classes kept Logan engaged, learning, and having fun while socializing with other kids. He’ll be taking more classes this summer.
“I am just really impressed with Kundana. She’s really inspiring as a young person to be doing this for other children in the community. And I have to say, she has really good teaching skills too,” Schaeffer-Bisht said.
“There's a lot of advantages of younger tutors because […] we kind of like understand the kids a little bit more,” said Kundana.
“It's kind of more intimidating with an adult and I feel like we make it more fun than other adults who like don't really know how to have fun sometimes,” Kundana said as she laughed.
Participating in Math4Chance is free for families. However, parents are asked to donate whatever amount they can to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to help kids with cancer.
“They donate however much they would like to because again there are people from different backgrounds and we want to make sure as many people can attend,” said Kundana.
Registration for Math4Chance closes this Saturday, June 26th with classes beginning Sunday, June 27th.