When Osman and Khalid Abate finish school for the day, they help younger children with their schoolwork.

They supervise math homework, read books, oversee arts and crafts.

		Grant M. Haller / P-I
	Osman Abate, left, and Kalid Abate put a blindfold on Lesley Baeza as she touches Hanan Keogh's face during the program in SeaTac. They were playing Word Relay, in which one blindfolded player retrieves letters and a partner tries to spell a word.

At a recent session, they blindfolded the children for a game. The children picked up letters off the floor with their eyes covered; they gave the letters to a partner who had to create a word with them.

"I like kids," Osman, 17, said. "They're fun."

"I'm just trying to help them out," Khalid, 15, added.

The teens tutor for the non-profit New Futures, which runs an after-school program at a low-income housing complex in SeaTac where the boys live.

"They've really grown up to be very good role models for the kids," said Mia Kuartei, academic coordinator at Windsor Heights apartment complex.

New Futures operates after-school programs at three complexes in King County. It expanded its program at its Burien apartments -- the largest of the three -- to serve 60 students. The organization plans to maintain the expanded program with donations from Readers Care.

New Futures serves about 30 students each at its SeaTac and White Center complexes.

The Abate brothers can relate to the younger children in a way that the adults can't, Kuartei said. And since they live in the same community as the children, they can reach out to them beyond the classroom.

The teens have lived at the SeaTac apartment complex for about four years. They moved to the United States with their mother and older brother from Ethiopia; their father arrived a few years earlier.

Both attend Tyee High School, where Osman is a junior and Khalid is a sophomore. They both aspire to attend Washington State University, where their older brother is a student. Khalid would like to be an astronaut someday. Osman wants work in health care, possibly as a nurse or dentist.

The tutors meet with the children -- in grades first through third -- after school Monday through Thursday.

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Osman and Khalid said they would have liked to participate in such a program when they were young. It not only helps the children academically, but it also keeps them off the streets and out of trouble -- something it also does for the teenager tutors now.

They say they've learned from the experience.

Khalid used to be shy, but interacting with the young students has taught him how to communicate. Osman has learned how to work with children.

"It's a good opportunity for us," Khalid said.

The P-I's Readers Care fund has raised $5.4 million since its inception in 1978. Readers can make donations through the P-I, and the newspaper will pay all administrative costs for the program so every dollar donated goes to the charities.

The fund also benefits the Forgotten Children's Fund, the Family and Adult Service Center, the Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center, Northwest's Child, Powerful Voices and Rise n' Shine.

READERS CARE FUND

For more than a quarter-century, Seattle P-I readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund, generating more than $5.4 million for local charities. Today we feature another of the seven charities that will benefit from this year's drive. Read more about the charity drive at readerscarefund.org.