My Nonprofit Reviews

The value of A Touch of Understanding through the eyes of a district superintendent
I was a public school teacher for sixteen years and then spent another twenty years as an administrator in positions ranging from assistant principal to superintendent. In all of those years, the best program I ever brought into a school where I served was A Touch of Understanding.

Helping students learn to treat each other with respect and to avoid being bullies was a goal from day one when I started teaching. As I moved into administrative roles, I often had responsibility for trying to bring in programs or support to counter bullying and make all students feel safe at school. Most of the programs in the first four districts where I worked had only minimal short-term impact.

Then I came to The Eureka Union School District and discovered A Touch of Understanding. Over my ten years in the district, and a dozen years on the ATOU Board, I look forward every year to watching that program change the lives of students with and without disabilities and show their teachers how to be more effective in the classroom and on the school grounds. The impact lasted long after the annual appearance of ATOU, and now that the program has reached over 100,000 students across Northern California in twenty-five years, they’re discovering that students who were lucky enough to participate in the program in elementary school are still talking about it in high school and some young adults are excited to see their own kids experience the program while others have gone into helping professions partially as a result of the impact of ATOU when they were young.

Bob Schultz, Adjunct faculty at Brandman University, past Superintendent of The Eureka Union School District

My grandson and his youth group volunteered last week and when he came home he was so pleased that all the people there were in a warm place and "their bellies were full and then we came around and gave them desert." It was a wonderful experience for him to do something for others and to see them as just people who needed a good meal and a warm place to spend the night.

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