The impact of mentoring

In life, we are provided few situations in which we are rewarded just by walking into a room. Mentoring is one of those situations. Experience has shown time and time again that adults can have a powerful, lifelong positive impact on a child just by being themselves and spending one-on-one time with a young person. We hear stories all the time about the affect mentoring has had on the children involved in our program. Here are just a couple of examples:

"Mentoring has been a true blessing"

We received a report from one of the school counselors who referred a fourth grader to our mentoring program.  The boy was abandoned by his mother and has had little contact with his father, so he is being raised by his grandmother.  The boy was referred to our program because of his negative attitude on life and his lack of social skills that resulted in him spending a lot of his free time alone at school.  The referring counselor reported that within two weeks of being matched with a mentor, this boy began to smile more and display a more positive outlook on a daily basis.  As the mentoring relationship has continued, she said the boy has become more outgoing, has a much calmer demeanor, has better self-esteem, and is better able to cope with his family situation. “Mentoring has been a true blessing for [this student] and his future,” the counselor said in her report.

Mentoring helps make the world a little less lonely

During one of our mentor training events, one of the presenters who is a local elementary school counselor showed a video tape of an interview she conducted with a student who is a mentee in our program. She asked the student about his experience in the mentoring program and how it has benefited his life. When asked if there was anything he would like to say to his mentor, the student replied, "I'm not lonely anymore."