The following column was submitted by Pam Stone, United Way of Marion County Executive Director
January was National Mentoring Month, which becomes an excellent reason to tell you about mentoring.
The Pew Partnership for Civic Change is a well-respected civic research organization that identifies and disseminates promising solutions to tough community issues. According to them, mentoring – when done right – is one of those programs that actually creates change. Children who participate in one-on-one mentoring reap the following benefits:
- They are less likely to initiate drug and alcohol use
- They skip fewer days of school
- They feel more competent about their ability to do well in school
- They report more positive relationships with friends and family
If you take one-on-one mentoring and embed it into a broader academically-oriented program, you will also see the following changes:
- Improved academic performance
- They are more likely to participate in college-preparatory activities
- They are more likely to attend college immediately after high school graduation
So when we had the opportunity to work with Marion City Schools to establish a pilot mentoring program for third-graders, we were eager to help.
Project MORE (Mentoring in Ohio for Reading Excellence) is a research-based collaboration between United Way of Marion County and Marion City School’s McKinley Elementary, along with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program and Boys & Girls Club of Marion County. The partnership has two goals:
- To significantly increase students’ reading skills using structured reading mentoring
- To significantly increase the number of third grade students who pass Ohio’s grade level reading achievement tests
Third grade students especially selected for the program are paired with a group of mentors who work with them on reading each week. Volunteer mentors provide one and one half hours of their time one day per week to work with three children. All volunteering takes place at the school beginning mid-January through the end of the school year. The research-based reading materials are provided so there’s no guesswork. A MORE coordinator is at the school to ensure that mentors have everything they need to work with their students.
Mentoring is also a big part of the Boys & Girls Club afterschool programming we support.
We know empirically that mentoring works and that the benefits for both mentors and mentees are great. It’s one way that almost anyone can help change the face of this community. By improving our short-term reading scores, we impact long-term statistics like graduation rates, which leads to that big white unicorn that every prospective employer seeks – an educated workforce.
Pam Stone
Executive Director
United Way of Marion County
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