By Suzanne Sato ’67
With college campuses closed during the current COVID-19 crisis, two young alumni from the Class of 2019 – Chloe Loughridge and Ryan Park – have started a free online tutoring service to help high school juniors and seniors prepare for Advanced Placement (AP) exams.
Loughridge, who attends Harvard University, and Park, a Stanford University freshman and one of the country’s 2019 U.S. Presidential Scholars, knew with AP exams on the horizon, Punahou and other students in the community might need help preparing for the various tests, which will take place this year online. So they launched a service today, called Aloha Not Corona (alohanotcorona.org), offering high-quality, virtual tutoring.
With some 20 tutors already on board, the site is designed to pair tutors and students for 30-minute virtual sessions. Loughridge and Park developed the website and tutoring parameters, then coordinated the effort by asking fellow Punahou alumni home from college to volunteer as tutors.
Aloha Not Corona services will be offered first to Punahou students, with AP exam preparation as the first priority. But Park and Loughridge hope to attract enough tutors to make services available more broadly to other schools and even middle-school students. The enterprising duo were supported in the planning phase by Dani Goddard and Chandra Peters ’84 of the Luke Center for Public Service, Case Accelerator for Student Entrepreneurship (CASE) Director Mark Loughridge and their former deans, Erin Maretzki ’89 and Deane Salter.
Beyond tutoring, Aloha Not Corona also lists on the website nonprofits seeking volunteers for various service opportunities.
To sign up for tutoring, or see other community service opportunities, visit alohanotcorona.org. You can also follow the group on Instagram @alohanotcorona and Facebook at Aloha Not Corona.
*Please note, not all instructors are affiliated with Punahou School.