Mentors in the “YouthFriends” program are on summer hiatus now, ready and waiting to begin their first full year of being “buddies” to local school children.
“I had a lot of fun,” said Gina Poertner, co-representative of the 2007 Leadership Emporia class that took on the project. Many of them gathered Tuesday night for a review of the program.
Twenty class members committed 400 hours to YouthFriends, a mentoring program begun this school year by Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Emporians for Drug Awareness. The class accumulated more than 700 hours of mentoring the children and marketing the program. Some members have since moved from Emporia, but all the remaining members have decided to continue in YouthFriends when classes resume in August.
Mentoring can take a number of forms — lunch buddy, reading buddy, playground buddy or tutoring buddy, for example. No special skills are required, other than being a good listener.
YouthFriends matches adults and children according to their interests. Mentors may select age and gender of the children they want to mentor.
Poertner’s interests matched her with a 10-year-old boy from Lowther South Intermediate School.
“The very first meeting, I wasn’t sure this was going to go too well,” Poertner said.
The boy was quiet and seemed reluctant to be with her. She soon found out why.
“He didn’t know why he was there,” she said. “He thought he was in trouble.”
Within a few weeks, he was looking forward to her weekly visits before school. And so was she.
“When it was nicer, we’d go out and play basketball, football,” said Poertner, who is interested in athletics and nutrition. “The further on we went, the more excited he got about things.”
The last meeting of the year, he was disappointed to have to say goodbye to Poertner.
“He said, ‘Why is it the last time? We have two more weeks of school,’’’ she said. “I was so surprised but I was so glad he said that.”
He asked Poertner if he could be in YouthFriends next year; she told him he could.
“He asked, ‘Can I get you again?’” she said, “and I said, ‘Yeah, you sure can!’”
Julie Cooper paired up with a sixth-grade girl from Lowther North Intermediate School for a lunch date every Wednesday.
Weather permitting, they took the food outside to enjoy the sunshine and chat about life in general, Cooper said. Lunch broadened into making a photo frame and card for a Mother’s Day gift.
“I am sort of scrapbooky-crafty, so I brought in my tools and we had fun making creative stuff for her mother,” Cooper said. Life lessons were mixed in with the fun.
“It was a wonderful experience,” Cooper said.
Steve Brosemer and his YouthFriend began their relationship doing homework. Brosemer, a former teacher, said it became apparent that the boy was quite bright and did not need extra help studying. Instead, they spent considerable time talking, with Brosemer trying to teach him ways to make good choices and use his talents to take leadership roles.
They have signed on to be buddies for the next school year.
Other volunteers from Leadership Emporia were Jo Bailey, Ann Coulson, Gary Eichorn, Charles Emley, Tara Freeman, Michael Gant, Jason Hoelting, Jacob Kvaal, Peggy Mast, John Newland, Marla Pearson, Chad Poland, Jesse Solis, Clare Spellman, Janna Stegmaier, Sarah Stump, Jody Wilkins and Melissa Windsor.
YouthFriends volunteers meet with students once a week during the school year. Applicants are needed now in preparation for the fall semester. Background checks are done. Applicants undergo interviews, training and orientation before being matched with students.
Parents or guardians need to complete permission forms before their children can be linked with mentors.
For more information, call 341-2450.