March of 2020 was a tough time for a lot of institutions, including the Old Bridge Public Library. With the doors locked and the staff furloughed as the pandemic shut the world down, volunteer tutor Rishabh Jain couldn’t even get an answer to an important question: What could be done for all of the students who leaned on him for help?
So Jain took matters into his own hands. He created a channel on the Discord social-media platform so he could continue to support the students in his tutoring orbit. And he enlisted fellow tutors, most of whom he had recruited, to follow suit.
“He was able to come up with a lot of stuff on his own,” said Lauren Parnagian, the library’s Youth Services Librarian. “He’s pretty unique.”
Jain not only kept the tutoring alive during the lockdown; he expanded both the number of tutors and the number of people being tutored. The tutoring program used to be for kids in grades 1-5. Now, thanks to his efforts, it’s available for middle- and high-schoolers too.
Here’s the kicker: Jain did all this as a student at Old Bridge High School. That’s why he is one of three recipients of the 2022 Marisa Tufaro Memorial Community Service Scholarship. The $1,000 awards are bestowed by the Marisa Tufaro Foundation, a nonprofit that assists pediatric patients and other children in need throughout the greater Middlesex County area.
The foundation and scholarship’s namesake, Marisa Tufaro, was an Edison resident. Born with a complex cardiac defect that required six open-heart surgeries and a heart transplant, she lived 13 inspirational years before succumbing in 2017 to a rare form of cancer following a valiant battle.
“I am so impressed by Rishabh,” Old Bridge High School principal Vincent Sasso said. “He will do anything for anyone. I’m proud that he represents us and proud that he is a recipient of the scholarship.”
Following the lead of his older brother Rahul, Jain began volunteering at the library in sixth grade, cleaning shelves, reading books to smaller children, basically doing whatever was needed. He got involved in “Tech Buddies,” a program that helps kids learn about technology. Once he got into tutoring, specializing in math, he recruited six friends to do it, too.
“He really is dedicated to the community, genuinely dedicated to helping as many people as he could,” Parnagian said. “The librarians here all love him. He was inspirational to the people he worked with.”
All told, Jain logged 500 hours of volunteer time.
“It was a very cool experience,” he said. “You get to connect with a whole variety of people. I enjoyed meeting new kids and teaching them something I was comfortable with — something they may not have enjoyed, I tried to help them enjoy it.”
Rishabh Jain, left, volunteering at Silver Linings Senior Center in Old Bridge
Jain did more than volunteer at the library. He ran the high school’s Physics Club, played varsity tennis, earned a 5.8 grade point average and volunteered at Silver Linings Senior Center in Old Bridge, where he gave pointers on cybersecurity and protecting one’s privacy online.
“I don’t know how he finds time for it all,” Sasso said. “Often times with students it’s just academics or just athletics or just community service. He does all of the above.”
In the fall Jain is headed to Princeton University, where he will focus on electrical and computer engineering.
“We’re definitely going to miss him here and all of his effort,” the library’s Parnagian said. “He’ll excel in anything he chooses to do.”
Right now, Jain finishing up a physics project — the creation of a laser pointer that will identify and point toward the location of Mars in the night sky.
“It doesn’t work yet, but hopefully it will,” he said.
The odds are, he’ll figure it out.