What is Learning Home Volunteers?

Learning Home Volunteers is a non-profit organization working to address the kindergarten-readiness gap by empowering and equipping parents to engage their young children in joyful learning through play.

Our program trains the parents with the skills they need to act as their children’s teacher. Training covers child-directed play-based learning, child development milestones, and incorporating our core learning goals into play, i.e., language, numeracy, and letter, color and shape recognition.

What is Our Mission?

We prepare low-income children for kindergarten, by empowering, equipping and supporting their parents to emphasize the excitement and joy of learning and discovery with their children through joyful play.

Who do we serve?

We serve low-income families living in San Mateo County, California.

What are our values?

All children are able and excited to learn. All children are born with innate curiosity to explore and learn about their environment. We believe that, by harnessing children’s excitement and supporting their exploration, learning will happen naturally.

Children should lead their own learning. The child’s interests lead the learning to ensure that learning is fun and engaging. Engaged exploration means more time learning. Children spend more learning when doing things they enjoy.

Ongoing training is provided through online training and drop-in sessions.

Respect is central to our work. We are respectful of the parent’s ability to teach their children and of the child’s play. Respect encourages confident and self-motivated learners.

We are always working to improve. We are looking to provide the best possible experience for our children, our families, and our volunteers. We actively evaluate our practices and make changes to improve them.

We are mindful that donors make our mission possible. We are thankful to each and every donor who believes in our mission and donates their time, services, and/or funds, or provides books and activities. We know that we would not exist without their help.

Our Board

Victoria Shoemaker | CEO of Learning Home Volunteers

Victoria Shoemaker

CEO

B.A. (Math/Management), Owned successful software business for 30+ years. Volunteered in youth sports, professional associations, preschool education setting for 5 years.
Joanne Donsky | Board member of Learning Home Volunteers

Joanne Donsky

Board Member

BA and MSW, UC Berkeley. Faculty in Department of Family and Community Medicine, UCSF for 42 years. Volunteered tutoring preschool aged children. Equal Start Leadership Team at Congregation Beth Am.
Dr. Muffie Waterman

Dr. Muffie Waterman

Board Member

B.A. Brandeis University, Ph.D Education, Ph.D Learning Studies. Author. Served as instructor at San Jose State University in cognitive development, child development, play and creativity. Served as executive director at non-profit.

 

Emily Evans

Emily Evans

Board Member

AB. (Biology), B.S. (Chemical Engineering), Ph.D. (Cell Biology), JD. Trained as a scientist then went to law school and became a patent lawyer. Worked in private practice over 20 years before retiring. Raised two children. Volunteered in schools for many years, as well as volunteering for several years tutoring preschool-aged children since retirement.

 

Kim Overton

Kim Overton

Board Member

Kim Overton has been working with children and families for 40 years in summer camps, in special education classes; teaching and running programs for children ages 6 months to 16 years old. She believes that all children should have opportunities to learn to the best of their ability. Kim has a B.A. in psychology from Stanford University and a multi-subject teaching credential. Her jobs have included a behavior therapist, an early childhood educator and program director at Genentech’s Bright Horizons child care center, and most recently, an admissions director at The Nueva School. All these experiences have drawn her focus to equity and access to quality education. LHV attracted her with our work in bridging the kindergarten-readiness gap and empowering parents to be their children’s first teachers and strongest advocates.
Jacob Sanchez

Jacob Sanchez

Board Member

Jacob Sanchez is a Vice President in commercial real estate who is driven by a sense of urgency to help those in need. He holds a BS in Chemistry from San Jose State University. Time serving as a medical volunteer in Uganda opened Jacob’s eyes to the life-changing role of reading, leading him to volunteer in primary schools during his travels in developing nations. Jacob’s willingness to tackle any challenge and his hunger to support learning led him to Learning Home Volunteers. Always seeking to challenge himself, when not helping LHV you will find Jacob ocean fishing by free diving to depths of 80 feet!
Andy

Andy Fukuba

Board Chair

Andy works in the technology sector and has been volunteering in the early-childhood education space since 2016.

Our Staff

Fernando Tercero

Fernando Tercero

Family Coordinator

Fernando Tercero

Mariana Muñoz

Family Coordinator

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.