Be The One Mentoring Coalition

 

About Be the One

Be the One Mentoring Coalition is a collaborative effort to promote mentoring of youth in Thurston and Mason Counties. The Coalition consists of 9 organizations who are united in an effort to recruit and support volunteers, raise awareness about the need for mentors, and convey the benefits that our mentoring programs provide to the community. For a list of meeting dates, please contact Tina Gehrig at 360.867.2508 or gehrigt@co.thurston.wa.us

Our goals are to:

1.    Increase awareness about the positive impacts of mentoring. 

  • Benefits include better attendance and attitude toward school, less drug and alcohol use, improved social attitudes and relationships, most trusting relationships and better communication with parents and a better chance of going on to high educations.

Source: Mentoring: A Promising  Strategy for Youth Development
  • Mentoring promotes healthy relationships between adults and youth as well as their peers.

2.  Recruit positive volunteers for our community's youth waiting for a mentor. Currently there is a need for 649 volunteers for kids on wait lists.

  • Thurston and Mason Counties have many excellent youth programs that are experiencing a shortage of volunteers to meet the demands for mentors.

3.   Provide individuals and organizations the opportunity to contribute funds, resources, or time towards mentoring programs or Be The One Mentoring Coalition.

  • Mentoring programs provide the necessary support, training and safety measures for programs to be effective and productive.

  • There are many different kinds of mentoring programs.

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What is a Mentor?

 

A mentor is an adult who, along with parents, provides a young person with support, counsel, friendship, reinforcement and constructive example.  Mentors are good listeners, people who care, people who want to help young people bring out strengths that are already there.

National Mentoring Partnership

Mentoring is the development of an ongoing relationship over a sustained period of time between two or more people where caring individuals provide consistent support, guidance, and concrete help to a younger person as she/he goes through life.

Washington State Mentors