Declaring support for public education to be vital to Americans' existence "as one people," Ford Cauffiel, the founder of S.O.S., Inc. kicked off the most ambitious project S.O.S. has ever undertaken: the expansion of peer tutoring programs into over a dozen urban elementary schools in the Toledo Public Schools system.

At a meeting with Superintendant Merrill Grant and his cabinet, Cauffiel presented a check in the amount of $11,666.66 to the school system, the first installment of a $35,000.00 commitment by S.O.S. that has been matched dollar for dollar by the school board.

"We want you to know that we stand with you in your war on reading and math illiteracy," said Cauffiel, referring to the Toledo schools' commitment to concentrating on basic competencies in early elementary grades.

Already, over one hundred student tutors have been hired and put into place in a dozen elementary schools: Fall-Meyer, Hawkins, Mt. Vernon, Keyser, Reynolds, Pickett, Stewart, Westfield, Walbridge, Elmhurst, Glendale-Feilbach, and Burroughs. Tutors have been drawn from Rogers, Libby, Start and Bowsher High Schools.

The new S.O.S. program in the Toledo schools is being coordinated at the system level by Ellen Bick, the TPS Administrator on Special Assignments, who is a former asssistant principal at Rogers High School. While at Rogers, Bick worked with S.O.S. and administered a tutoring program there.

"We are very pleased that someone who has run an S.O.S. program at the school level is now operating it system-wide," commented James F. Trumm, the president of S.O.S., Inc.