A rambunctious little boy walked into the Arabelle Center for Education hand-in-hand with his grandmother. As he waited to meet with his tutor, he discovered the snack cart stocked with chips, cookies and juice boxes for kids and coffee for adults. He rifled through the bucket, grabbing as many afterschool snacks as he could fit in his small palm.
Robin Hedspeth ’89, who after years of working with children, has mastered the art of multitasking, stopped herself mid-sentence to remind him to take only one, in the firm but gentle tone that signals a seasoned teacher.
Upon graduating from UNC Charlotte with a bachelor’s degree in middle school education and a concentration in math and science, Hedspeth married her college sweetheart, Kevin ’88, and pursued a career as a math teacher. After four years, she left the classroom on maternity leave and became a stay-at-home mom. Yet, she still looked for ways to exercise her love for working with students. She began volunteering at her children’s school and as they moved along, she moved along with them, tutoring in their elementary, middle and high schools.
“I love teaching. But when I became a mom and stopped teaching, I started volunteering, and I realized my passion and my heart were the one-on-one connections that I made with students,” said Hedspeth. “The benefit that I felt like they could get through a relationship, more so than just being in the classroom.”
This passion for connecting one-on-one with students has now come to fruition in the Arabelle Center for Education. The Hedspeths moved to the small town of Rockwell, located in Rowan County, North Carolina, where Robin Hedspeth noticed a dilapidated building on East Main Street and dreamed of turning it into a student center. Unbeknownst to Hedspeth, her husband shared that dream and was ready to make it a reality.
“He said ‘I’m looking at making an investment, and I was thinking about that old building downtown—I thought maybe you could use it for tutoring,’” Hedspeth recalled. “I almost fell on the floor, because I had thought that for probably 20 years.”
Through hard work and a labor of love, the Hedspeths transformed the building into a fun, safe learning space for students of all ages. An open room is filled with individual desks, chairs and tables for collaborative work, and there are several computers for students to use to access the internet.
Hedspeth envisioned the center as a free place for students to drop in after school and ask questions from volunteers about concepts they were struggling with. However, she quickly realized that students and parents needed scheduled appointments with qualified tutors to assist children.
“It’s the one-on-one time they put in,” said Sandra Ellis, who brings her daughter Amya to the center for tutoring. “They will go over it more than once.”
Like Amya, most students come two afternoons a week for several months to get caught up. At most tutoring centers, the cost of weekly lessons can be a financial road block for many families; however, the Arabelle Center operates on a sliding scale. Based on household size and income, most students qualify for reduced rates, and in many cases services are free.
“I’m a single mom, so affordability is very important to me,” said Ellis.
Through regular donations of friends, online campaigns and sacrifices by the Hedspeths, the Arabelle Center of Education is able to meet students’ needs at an affordable cost. Qualified tutors offer roughly 18 sessions per week to students, who range from kindergarteners to high school seniors.
“It’s become our motto,” said Robin Hedspeth. “We don’t think a student should fail or succeed based on the economic status they were born into. We think everyone should have that one-on-one chance, we don’t want that to be out of reach.”
As Ellis picks up her daughter, she asked if Amya had shared the good news with her tutors. Smiling from ear to ear, the little girl reports that she made all A’s on her last tests.