A role model for role models: Linda Fawkes

Linda Fawkes was a finalist for the San Francisco Education Fund's 2015 Distinguished Service Award.When the Education Fund launched a new Literacy Program at our City’s highest-need elementary schools to help students learn to read, Linda Fawkes was among the first to sign up.We ask our Literacy Volunteers to commit one hour per week to work one-on-one with two students for the duration of the school year, but let’s just say Linda is a bit of an overachiever.Linda was nominated for this year’s Distinguished Service Award by three different teachers at Dr. Charles Drew College Preparatory Academy.The school’s literacy specialist Jessie Blundell told us, “Linda has taken initiative above and beyond her role as tutor. She is that rare sort of person with an internal commitment to seeing and filling needs. You are just as likely to find her tutoring students in reading as you are to see her headed off on a field trip. She seems to have a sixth sense about when and how help is needed, and her presence feels supportive and never intrusive.”Through her willingness to help wherever needed, Linda has demonstrated a strong commitment to the school community and provided a sense of stability for students and staff alike.She’s also paved the way and become a role model for other volunteers at the school and across the City. Just this spring, she inspired a new volunteer workshop focused on equity.“Linda is an example of how to marry good intentions with an ethic of care,” Ms. Blundell said. “She wants very much to help. She also cares enough to learn how a visitor to the Bayview/Hunters Point community might help without unintentionally hurting. It is no easy task to reach out - in an authentic way — across barriers created by difference in culture, language and geography. It requires a deep level of self-awareness and reflection, as well as an emotional and intellectual appreciation of difference. It is clear from her commitment to know and understand our students, that Linda is our partner in the larger project of educational equity.”Her other nominators, administrator Halima Marshall and first-grade teacher Kemet Bender, echoed the sentiment.“She is a non-judgmental entity in a school that has many labels and needs, she is able to send positive words back into the school and societal community about the good parts about our school,” Ms. Marshall said.“She has helped make my classroom more calm, focused and run smoothly. She’s brought positive change,” Mr. Bender said.In the last two years, Linda has proven herself a warm, caring and consistent part of Dr. Charles Drew’s community. She takes care of students as if they were her own and does so without any expectations.When she realized the frequency with which students were wearing the school’s burgundy blazers, she took it upon herself to spiff them up. She takes them home to wash them and ensures each has its own set of sturdy buttons.“As volunteer of the year, Linda would provide a model of humility, self-reflection, dedication and consistency,” Ms. Blundell said. “These are the often under-valued characteristics of those who create real change.”Linda volunteers at Dr. Charles Drew College Preparatory Academy through the Education Fund's Literacy Program.