WELCOME

Thoughts from a New Mentor.

This year marks a lot of firsts for me, I’ll spare you the details of the first time I baked a pie back in June or my first time fly-fishing in March. But, I would like to share a bit about my experience as a first-time mentor in the Weekly Mentorship Program, which may be a bit more relevant than a delicious cherry pastry or feisty Brown Trout.

Our group works with three different classes over 90 minutes at an EBD elementary school. I’ll have to admit, our group was a bit apprehensive about doing a project three times with three different groups and only 30 minutes per group. How would we be able to explain a project, make it, and clean up in time? Well, as we are learning, planning simple projects with few materials makes Free Arts time enjoyable for everyone involved.

My time in mentorship thus far has taught me that drawing a monster truck with a jacuzzi is not only possible but is pretty dang cool, Spiderman 3 for Nintendo DS has over 30 levels but Jessie has already beat it, and most of all, that I have a lot more to learn. Every meeting always holds surprises, each one more interesting than the last and I look forward to many more in the future.

Jim Moen
VISTA Volunteer Coordinator

Mentor TIPs

Think about the projects you're doing and the space you will be using – visualize before you get there to double check the things you need to consider..

Talk to the kids about what they want to do! Have a brainstorming session with them!

Be as positive as possible without being Pollyanna – give attention equally. Be genuine with your praise and do what feels right for you.

When talking to the kids you don’t need to know ‘what’s cool’, you just need to be interested in learning from them.

Let your inner dork flag fly!