I have always been passionate about volunteerism  — not because there was one specific cause I felt drawn to, but because of the gratification I derive from volunteering. One initiative I championed within my company was Cricket Media’s CricketTogether program. It offered the ideal opportunity to take my professional passion for developing learning content for students of any age and applying it to a specific goal: increasing the reading and critical thinking skills of school-aged children. From the time first time I connected with the student I was to e-mentor, I was hooked.

Once we’d built rapport over our families and interests, we read magazine articles together (virtually) and discussed them. Since I have a son the exact same age as my pen pal, it was both easy and fun to pick out what I found interesting, and then prod him with questions I knew would encourage creative thinking.

The program has been such an immediate smash hit at my company that we went from 43 volunteers in the first installment of the program in spring 2017 (already exceeding the request of 25) to an amazing 103 this past fall — nearly 50% of our entire company’s workforce!

Read the full article about volunteering at Cricket Media by Basil Sadiq at Volunteer Match.