Make a Brighter Day
By: Source: AARP Bulletin Today Date Posted: 2003-06-26 16:40:23
After Mitchell, 16, lost his mother three years ago, he tried his best to live up to what she wanted for him—getting a good education. But he quickly realized, "I may not make it without help."
Five months after his mother's death, Mitchell was paired up with Morton Smiley, 65, a volunteer with the Fulfillment Fund, a mentoring program in suburban Los Angeles.
The unlikely duo has been through some rough times, but Mitchell has kept his grades up and stayed out of trouble. "If it weren't for the Fulfillment Fund," Mitchell says, "I would have been depressed, getting into crime. I was on my way."
Smiley adds, "It's a good feeling knowing somebody wants you to help them. His goals and my goals are the same."
Mitchell and Smiley are among a growing number of mentoring pairs nationwide. In these relationships, adults offer one-on-one support to mostly disadvantaged youngsters through schools, sports—or simple friendship.
In California, there are more than 400,000 mentoring pairs under the California Mentor Initiative, an umbrella public-private partnership of 300-plus mentoring programs.
Recognized as a standout effort by national mentoring groups and experts, California's initiative has become a model for other states interested in doing more to pair adult volunteers with at-risk kids.
"California was a pioneer in mentoring," says Gail Manza, executive director of the National Mentoring Partnership (NMP), an advocacy group and national clearinghouse based in Alexandria, Va.
Other states—Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota and North Carolina—also have outstanding initiatives, Manza notes. The number of NMP-affiliated states with established mentoring partnerships has grown to 17, while 11 other states are developing partnerships with the group.
"Every child needs a mentor," declares Manza. Finding the right match can be tricky though. For instance, adults with busy schedules or too many other commitments often aren't what a child needs.
Older mentors have proven to be especially valuable because "they are there, they show up," Manza points out. "A lot of [these] kids live in terribly challenging environments," and assuring them that they can rely on their mentor is critical.
The support mentors offer children can be crucial. Morton Smiley, for example, has not only encouraged Mitchell to get into college, but keeps him on track emotionally, too. Besides losing his mother, the boy has had to deal with his father's struggle with drug abuse.
"I focus on Mitchell and it works," Smiley tells the AARP Bulletin. The two talk on the phone a lot and get together at least once a week. They've gone to ball games and even whale-watched together.
While mentoring programs are generally viewed as a powerful weapon against academic failure, teen pregnancy, drug abuse and gang activity, kids aren't the only ones who benefit from these teaching relationships.
Andrea Taylor, with the Center for Intergenerational Learning at Temple University in Philadelphia, says an 80-year-old mentor has told her many times, "I get more out of this than the kids do."
"Mentoring gives adults the great satisfaction of making a positive difference in the life of a child," says Suzanne Miller, AARP California's managing director of public affairs. "We see benefits for AARP members as well as for the kids."
Ora Lowe, 55, can attest to that. She's a mentor through Experience Corps, a program that enrolls the help of adults over 55. Working with Maurice, 11, has given her life more purpose, Lowe says.
Lowe and Maurice meet between two and four days each week at the Community Bridges Beacon Center in San Francisco. Maurice was 5 when his father was murdered, and he now lives with his aunt.
Maurice, a seventh-grader, has had problems in just about all of his school subjects, but has shown great interest in history and reading. "He'll read anything you put in front of him," Lowe says.
But it's not always easy. "He is at a stage where he feels everything is unfair," Lowe admits, and sometimes it's difficult working with him because he gets distracted by fights at school or the violence he confronts on the streets.
Despite that, the two are diligent, and the payoffs slowly come. "When he learns something," Lowe says, "you can see it in his face. It's a happy face. I know when he gets it."
Susanna Brumer, a 65-year-old retiree, works with Timothy, 13, who enters eighth grade this fall. His mother got him involved with the Beacon Center program after she discovered at a parent-teacher conference that he was having difficulty with English and reading.
Since Brumer began meeting with Timothy about a year ago, his reading has advanced nearly two grade levels, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
"Sue doesn't give up on me," Timothy says, "and it helps me achieve."
Brumer stresses that the mentoring effort she's involved in gets results "because it's set up properly." Mentoring experts agree that good management and oversight within a program are vital to its success.
Kids who end up in short-lived or erratic mentoring relationships because of a poorly run organization or poorly trained mentors are often worse off than kids who've never been mentored at all, says Temple University's Taylor.
California's network of mentoring programs shows how good organization, training and funding can produce results, says Jim Kooler, the director of the public-sector Governor's Mentoring Partnership in California. Over the past six years, more than $100 million has been invested in the partnership.
Nearly 78,000 California kids are on a waiting list for a mentor, and the state is on track to have 500,000 matches by the end of the year, 1 million matches by 2005.
"We'll slam-dunk that," says Andy Mecca, president of the California Mentor Foundation. His state's work, he adds, isn't done until every child who needs a mentor has a mentor.
preview