‘Math should be done while smiling’
Milford women start nonprofit math-tutoring service
MILFORD — As a new nonprofit math teaching service, Room 17 places emphasis on wanting students to think about math throughout the day and dispel the myth that math only happens during school. Now, the group has gotten a boost from receiving its official nonprofit tax status.
“In 2019, we started as a summer math camp,” said Monica Cavender, co-founder and executive director of Room 17. “Our original application for nonprofit status went in the first of July, 2021, and we got approved at the end of January. So when we received the letter, it was a happy moment.”
In 2020, Cavender and Room 17’s other co-founder and executive director, Sara Kaminski, decided to take their idea of Room 17 from being only a summer camp program to an organization.
“When COVID hit, everything went virtual, and we weren’t comfortable in hosting anything in person because of the unknown that COVID brought,” said Cavender. “Then it just kind of grew from there. The students wanted to keep going, and we were getting such positive feedback from both parents and students about how their kids were asking if they could do more math with us. So that was our big success when they were asking for more.”
There are many reasons why Cavender and Kaminski decided to apply Room 17 for nonprofit status. One of those reasons is that it opens them up to new funding possibilities.
“We want to meet more of the diversified need and have the opportunity to receive more support to meet more students’ needs in mathematics,” Cavender said. “There are grants available for nonprofits and supports that are in place for nonprofits versus a for-profit business.”
“We do have a partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs in Milford, and through grant funding, we are able to provide services for a wider community in Milford and beyond,” Cavender added. “That helps us pay our teachers and provide the math tools to our students, who we refer to as roomies.”
Cavender said she and Kaminski had known each other for years, and the nonprofit’s name is a call back to when they first met.
“We came up with the name because when she was a fourthgrade teacher, my son was in her classroom, and that’s where we met, in Room 17,” said Cavender. “He’s 24 now, so we’ve been working at this for a long time.”
Cavender and Kaminski decided to start Room 17 because they believe math should be done while smiling.
“We felt we knew ways to do that, and we wanted to offer that as a service to the community,” said Cavender. “Math can be playful, yet still rigorous, require thinking and reasoning, be part of a conversation, as well as a notice that it is part of everyone’s day-today.”
What makes Room 17 different from other math services is that they like to promote Room 17 as an engaging opportunity.
“We do not do any worksheets, and we do not believe in timed tests,” said Cavender. “Students are becoming more fluent, but they practice that fluency in that engaging way and understand the reasons behind it. We talk a lot about strategy instead of speed. We would really like a lifelong appreciation of mathematics, so we teach math through strategies and then practice those strategies through games.”