Bethesda Restoration Outreach Worship Center in Brundidge is offering free tutoring sessions for students in kindergarten through 12th grade and adults who are preparing to take the GED.

Patricia Valentine, program coordinator, said the purpose of the tutoring program is to reach out into the community to support and empower individuals to become high functioning members of the community.

“When a community can support itself, then we can triumph and applaud it together,” said Valentine, whose husband, Samuel, is the bishop of the Bethesda Outreach Ministry that has worship centers in the United States and in Africa.

The free tutoring program is an arm of the ministry’s “In the Name of Love” outreach program.

The tutorial program began in Lawton, Oklahoma in 1999 and was conducted by volunteers who believed in its mission and wanted to be a part of it.

Time and talents were volunteered and all materials and supplies were donated.

“The tutorial program was a celebration of a community working together for the greater good,” Valentine said. “We went into the poorest neighborhoods and set up tutoring classes and offered assistance in preparing for the GED for parents.

Many of adults took and passed the GED. Some went to college and most of them got jobs and got off welfare.”

Valentine said the concept of the free tutorial program in Brundidge is the same.

“We want every child to graduate high school and to go to college if that is their desire,” she said. “We will focus on where a child got stuck and go back to that point and move ahead from there. We will also equip adults to take the GED. We do not do the testing but we help prepare them to take the test.”

The tutorial program at Bethesda Restoration Outreach Worship Center currently has 11 students enrolled and the enrollment is open to others.

The classes are from 4 until 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursday at the Center on South Main Street in Brundidge.

Volunteers are always welcome and donations are needed to purchase supplies. Pike PC recently donated several computers and room dividers to the program.

“We are very appreciative of the support we have received from the community and look forward to being active and involved as we find other ways to reach out to others,” Valentine said.

For more information about the free tutorial program or to enroll, call 808-9230.