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Washington, D.C. – National Mentoring Month, taking place in January 2007, will shine the spotlight on the power of mentoring and draw attention to the need for more volunteer mentors to help America’s young people achieve their full potential.
The campaign's goal is to recruit volunteer mentors to work with children who are at risk of not leading healthy, productive lives. People interested in becoming mentors are asked to go to http://www.mentoring.org, where they can find organizations offering mentoring opportunities in their local community.
National Mentoring Month will showcase a series of television and print public service ads featuring Quincy Jones, Maya Angelou, Clint Eastwood, and Sting. Other PSAs will highlight the need for mentors for young people aging out of foster care and youth with disabilities. To view the videos, go to http://www.whomentoredyou.org.
For the first time since the 2002 launch of National Mentoring Month, the Corporation for National and Community Service is taking a leadership role in spearheading this effort, along with the Harvard Mentoring Project, and MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership. The agency invests significant funding each year to support mentoring through its Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America.
“Caring adults can tip the balance between success and failure for children in a precarious state,” Eisner said. “We are calling on adults to share their experience and time with the 15 million children in America who need mentors.”
The Corporation is working with a coalition of government, corporate, and nonprofit groups to recruit an additional 3 million mentors for at-risk children in the United States by the year 2010. Occasions such as National Mentoring Month and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on January 15 and are perfect opportunities for newcomers to begin serving as mentors.
As part of National Mentoring Month, the fourth annual Thank Your Mentor Day will be celebrated on Thursday, January 25. On that day, many Americans will reach out to thank or honor those individuals who encouraged and guided them, and had a lasting impact on their lives. Thank Your Mentor Day urges mentees to express their appreciation to their mentors and to “pass it on” by becoming a mentor to another young person in their community.
In many of the major markets, a lead partner for National Mentoring Month has been identified to coordinate activities, provide a telephone number for prospective volunteers to call, and to distribute campaign materials. In ten states the lead partner is the governor-appointed state service commission. Those states are Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Texas. Visit the campaign’s web site, http://www.whomentoredyou.org and click on “National Mentoring Month to view a list of lead partners. For National Mentoring Month, the Corporation has made available a variety of mentoring resources available on its website, http://www.nationalservice.gov, including a new Mentoring Toolkit, research that analyzes Census Bureau data to determine which individuals are more likely to become mentors, an issue brief that details the various ways the Corporation supports mentoring activities, and more.
The Corporation for National and Community Service improves lives, strengthens communities, and fosters civic engagement through service and volunteering. Each year, the Corporation provides opportunities for more than 2 million Americans of all ages and backgrounds to serve their communities and country through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America. For more information, go to http://www.nationalservice.gov.
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