Volunteer Spotlight – Dave Canaan

September 8, 2026

Another school year is off to a great start, and Heart Math Tutoring is excited to pair students with tutors in the upcoming months who will provide them with important instruction and mentorship. We know Heart tutors are also excited to be back in the tutoring space and meet their students. One such tutor is Dave Canaan; Dave is entering his second year as a volunteer with Heart in Charlotte and Heart Expanded Learning Program Coordinator Stacey Howell says, “Dave has really thrown his whole heart into supporting Heart Math Tutoring and our school. Not only is he a consistent and wonderful tutor, but he supports Heart by constantly recruiting his friends and neighbors to join us and lending a helping hand at every opportunity he sees. We are so lucky Dave joined our team!” Heart is honored to feature Dave and the impact he’s had on students. Read on to hear what Dave loves about working with his students each week and how he encourages new volunteers to get involved.

Dave first came to Heart Math Tutoring after seeing a feature on WBTV shortly after he retired. Dave has a background in engineering and worked for Mecklenburg County for 30 years. Dave’s mother and grandmother were teachers, his wife consulted with cities and counties, his son is a Marine, and his daughter is a paramedic in Charlotte; he says, “being a public servant in that aspect runs in our family.”

Dave began working with two students in Fall 2025 and enjoyed seeing his students grow in their confidence and their math skills. He shares that his students took tutoring seriously and were excited to tell him during their Monday tutoring sessions how they practiced math at home over the weekend. Both of Dave’s students were motivated to progress through Heart’s curriculum and Dave was there with consistency and encouragement to help them do so.

Dave built positive relationships with his students by relating the math content back to their interests, mainly sports, and spending time getting to know them. He says, “that time walking back to the classroom is really so valuable to build up that relationship.” He shares he also used some engagement practices to keep tutoring fun while they learned: “[The students] were really excited to play games and one of the games I really liked playing, and they did too, is when we would switch – they would become the tutor and I would become the student. That was a lot of fun, and they really enjoyed it. It gave me permission to act like a kid, which I don’t pass up very often.”

When asked about his favorite part of tutoring, Dave says, “That’s an easy one. It’s the students. It’s getting to know them. Stacey reminded me they have tough days too. I think we forget that; but maybe making their day a little bit brighter when they’re having a tough day…that’s really a lot of fun and what I really look forward to.”

Dave is returning as a volunteer to the same school this year and is excited to meet his new students while hoping to see his students from last year in the hallway to wave hello. He says he has missed tutoring over the summer and that tutoring is, “just an overall enjoyable experience, period.”

Dave also hopes the community will consider joining him in supporting students with Heart this school year. He has attended events with Heart staff at retirement communities to encourage others and spreads the word throughout his network to pair more volunteers with the students who will benefit from an extra hour of math practice and a mentor. Dave says he shares three things with a prospective volunteer:

• “Heart Math Tutoring is very professional and very organized, but at the same time, they’re not rigid… it’s a really good way to get math concepts across to the students with a tremendous amount of resources,
• The other thing I share with them is how tremendously rewarding it is. I don’t think I ever had a bad Monday afternoon after tutoring. It was just a great, great experience, even when the students were having an off day and we didn’t make any progress, it was still a good day,
• And lastly, it’s actually a quote that I had recently heard by Shirley Chisholm: ‘service is a rent we pay for the privilege of living on this Earth.’…I just try to talk to folks about how an hour of your week could make a tremendous amount of difference to somebody who just needs a little bit of extra help.”

Thank you, Dave, for sharing your passion and your time to help Heart students grow and believe in themselves. Heart Math Tutoring is grateful to our volunteers, and we hope you will consider joining Dave to further our mission this school year. Learn more and sign up here.