Youth of the Month December 2016: Molli Pearson

By Jeremy Brown

Molli Pearson is a pretty talented 12-year-old.

Pearson, a sixth-grade student at Scott Elementary, plays the piano, flute, guitar and sings in honors choir, all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA in the classroom. As a musical performer, sharing her talents with others is nothing out of the ordinary – she’s performed four times last month. She carries that same sharing mentality with her as a student tutor at Scott, however, and her service earned her recognition as Youth Resources’ December Youth of the Month.

Music has been a significant part of Pearson’s childhood, but tutoring is a relatively new skill in her repertoire. A kindergartener named Emilia moved to Evansville from Germany, right across the street from Pearson, in the middle of last school year. Not knowing much English and nearly a semester behind in school, Emilia’s mother asked Pearson, then a fifth-grader, if she’d tutor Emilia .

“She was struggling in everything and had to catch up with everything that the other students had already learned,” said Pearson. “She didn’t talk that much because she really didn’t know how to in our language.”

Pearson  worked with Emilia on her spelling and reading at first, and after Emilia firmly grasped those subjects, Pearson moved on to tutoring her in math.

“She’s basically understanding all of it now, and now she talks a lot,” said Pearson.

Pearson continues tutoring Emilia, now a first-grader, to this day. Recently, she’s taken her service to a new level at Scott Elementary: she is sacrificing two recess periods a week to tutor a fourth-grade student in math. Sixth grade is generally the last level of schooling where students get recess, and Pearson gives it up bi-weekly.

“Our kids are so great out here (at Scott). We are very fortunate,” said Gayle Mooney, Pearson’s sixth-grade homeroom teacher. “Molli steps up and leads when I need things, like volunteering her time to tutor. She is kind to all of her classmates, very helpful and an all-around super girl.”

Jeremy Brown is the TEENPOWER, Special Events and Communications Coordinator at Youth Resources and a YR alumnus.