Volunteer program seeks male mentors

The Community Friends program, one of the largest and oldest volunteer programs on campus, faces an increasing shortage of male student mentors to pair with local schoolchildren.

The program, currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, uses a system of applications and interviews to match Addison County children between the ages of six and 13 with a Middlebury student mentor of the same gender responsible for spending at least two hours a week with their charges for at least one academic year. Though rising numbers of male children have expressed interest in the program, Community Friends has been unable to match them with an equal number of male student volunteers.

“There are more boys who are looking for mentors right now,” said Evan Deutsch ’12, a student coordinator for the program. “We don’t know why, but for some reason, a lot fewer guys want to be mentors, and we’re trying to figure out how to attract more … A lot of guys I’ve talked to that say that they want to do it but in the end, they don’t really follow through. We’ve been hanging up posters and encouraging male mentors to talk to their friends.”

Community Friends differs from many of the other volunteer programs on campus for several central reasons: it forms connections between individual students and mentees rather than having a group setting, and it is a “community-based” program, meaning that its members independently participate in activities in the community rather than meeting in a specific place each week.

“Our focus is on providing the one-on-one attention that kids in our program are lacking at home or elsewhere,” said Kay Freedy, the program’s coordinator through the Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE) office. “Parents may be absent or stretched too thin by work or other challenges to expose these kids to the positive adult interaction and opportunities that our mentors can, or maybe they just need another positive influence.”

Ali Urban ’12, one of the program’s student coordinators responsible for interviewing potential mentors, training them and helping match mentors with mentees who have similar interests, also feels that the individual attention and community-based approach are two of the most crucial parts of the Community Friends program.

“I think the one-on-one model of this program is really important to its success and uniqueness,” said Urban.  “I had worked with children before, but it had always been in groups or for short periods of time.
“Through Community Friends I’ve developed a really special friendship with Ava, my mentee,” she continued. “I have the opportunity to do things both on and off campus with her that I might not have done otherwise — for example, going sledding or exploring her town … I can give Ava some time where she is the center of attention and try new things, and she, in a way, reminds me of what’s really important.”

Not only does the one-on-one, community-based structure allow for flexibility on the mentor’s part, it also opens up new channels for students to access and have a real impact upon the Addison County community at large.

“The most rewarding part [of the program] is becoming a part of the greater Middlebury community,” said John William Meyer ’10, a mentor within the program. “You’re not just establishing a relationship with a kid, but with a family and community. Being a community friend has helped make Middlebury feel like home.”

Moreover, by asking for at least a yearlong commitment from its mentors, the relationships fostered often extend far beyond that two-hour per week window. Mentors describe their mentees coming to visit them over the summer, or sending them postcards and e-mails while studying abroad.

According to Jere Urban, the guidance counselor at Bristol Elementary School who has been involved in recommending the program to his students and helping advocate for those students to reluctant parents or guardians since 1983, these relationships sometimes last a lifetime.

“I remember a student going to a mentor’s wedding, and another one going on a vacation visit to her mentor,” he said. “I even remember a sixth grader telling me about how his dad is still in touch with his [the dad’s] mentor from 20 years ago!”

According to the Community Friends newsletter published at the end of this past fall semester, 73 percent of 400 polled mentees said mentors helped them raise their goals and expectations.
Josh Pincus ’10, another student coordinator for the program, described one of these broadening experiences with his mentee Finn. He recently took Finn on a visit to a lab in McCardell Bicentennial Hall, where two of Pincus’s friends are conducting research into octopus behavior.

“Finn loves animals and has talked about becoming a vet, but he had never seen an octopus,” Pincus said. “My friend was nice enough to meet us at the lab, where they have a number of octopuses, and we spent the next hour watching and feeding the octopuses. As we walked out of Bi Hall, he turned to me with a huge grin on his face and said, ‘That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done!’”

The program has gone through numerous iterations over its 50-year history, serving handicapped people, elders, and children along the way. Up until eight years ago Counseling Services of Addison County, or CSAC, ran the Community Friends program in partnership with the College. At that time, the program began to run out of the ACE office with the financial and technical support of CSAC. As of this fall, CSAC’s involvement in the program has diminished to support for mentees in need of professional counseling if serious issues arise.

Over the course of the Community Friends program’s existence, 2,000 College students have served as mentors. This year has seen significant growth, expanding from approximately 30 members in the 2007-2008 academic year, and about 60 last year, to 93 students involved this spring.

This jump in enrollment includes several new initiatives, such as Xiao Pengyou, a focus group for Chinese and Chinese-American mentors working with Chinese children adopted by Vermont families, and the Sense of Place program, designed to give Community Friends the opportunity “to explore Vermont together and discover Vermont’s unique agriculture, ecology, government, and history,” according to the program’s newsletter.

“Every week I look forward to my Thursdays, not only because I know I won’t be studying much, but because I’ll be doing something more tangible with my time, something I’ll remember years from now,” said John William Meyer ’10, a mentor. “I would like to encourage my fellow college students, especially freshmen and sophomores to start mentoring. It’s a great way to meet people on campus, and make a significant difference in the local community.”