We need your presence at Youth Mentoring Day

For the last five years, the Highland Street Corps Ambassadors of Mentoring, in partnership with Mass Mentoring Partnership and the Massachusetts Service Alliance have hosted Youth Mentoring Day at the State House.

The event, held in National Mentoring Month (January), raises awareness about youth mentoring in Massachusetts, celebrates the power of mentoring relationships, and recognizes individuals who have significantly contributed to the mentoring field, including mentoring program staff, mentors, businesses, and state legislators.

Attendees taking their seats prior to the start of Youth Mentoring Day 2011

More than 200 people dedicated to advancing youth mentoring in the Commonwealth attend the event. During the program, we talk about the value of mentoring to the mentees and Massachusetts in general. We reinforce the need for more people to step up as mentors, and urge our state legislators to do all that they can to ensure that Massachusetts continues to make a financial investment in the mentoring field.

While all of this is essential, a critical piece is still missing, and that’s a significant youth presence at Youth Mentoring Day.

A large youth turnout sends the message that mentoring is much more widespread than many realize: There are more than 23,000 youth involved with mentoring programs across Massachusetts. It tells our public officials that mentoring is not only important to program staff, but that it is viewed by mentees as a critical part of their lives, and something they are willing to make the extra effort to come out and support.

Mentees are also a powerful addition to the legislative meetings that follow the Youth Mentoring Day program. Youth can communicate the value of mentoring relationships better than anyone else. They can speak first-hand to how their mentors have helped connect them to resources, guide them around important decisions, and just have been consistent and caring friends. Our collective work to ensure public resources for the mentoring field is simply much stronger when the youth voice is a larger part of our call to action.

But more than that, participating in Youth Mentoring Day offers a unique and empowering experience for mentees. Youth that participate are introduced to the workings of the Massachusetts government. They get to see the State House, and if they attend legislative meetings, they may even meet with their state representative or state senator, and have the opportunity to practice communication skills as they educate public officials about mentoring. Most importantly, the day gives mentees an opportunity to use their voices for the benefit of the programs that are so vital to them, and to see just how powerful and influential they can be as well.

This year, when you register to attend Youth Mentoring Day, bring your matches with you. It will be worth the effort.

To set up a legislative meeting, email Elena Sokolow-Kaufman. If you’re interested in attending Youth Mentoring Day (note – it’s free!), you may register at this link. We take photos at this event, so all attendees should fill out this photo release form and fax to Lauren Winfree, 617.695.2435.

Celebrating great partnerships: CTP and Everybody Wins! Metro Boston

Tonight, as part of the Prudential Center’s “31 Nights of Light,” the Boston landmark will be lit in blue in honor of Mass Mentoring Partnership and as an early kickoff to National Mentoring Month 2012 (January).

As part of tonight’s event, we wanted to spotlight a business that has demonstrated their commitment to the mentoring field, and the business we chose – CTP – is a long-time supporter of mentoring. Not only have they generously donated their creative and media services, pro-bono, to MMP over the last five years, they also have many of their employees engaged as mentors in the Everybody Wins! Power lunch program.

According to EWMB’s Executive Director, Darcy Madden, CTP’s initial involvement was at the Alighieri School in East Boston during the 2006-2007 school year, and briefly at the Eliot School in the North End around the same time. At the end of the 2010-2011 school year, the Alighieri School was closed by the Boston Public Schools so the group is now participating at the Adams School in East Boston.

CTP Account Executive Jessica Mulrean reads to her mentee during Power Lunch

In total there have been 25 CTP employees who have served as reading mentors since 2006-2007 with 10 of those people participating for two years or more. They contribute financially to support their involvement with Power Lunch each year, and this year they also provided in-kind support by redesigning EWMB’s 2011 Golden Ticket Gala promotional materials.

CTP’s commitment to their community is genuine, and it’s an attitude that has permeated throughout the staff from the top down, as their partners are mentors, too.

“We find it [Power Lunch] such a rewarding experience,” said Fred Conover, president of CTP. “…It gives us an opportunity to clear our minds and think about something different. And sometimes as hard as it is to tear ourselves away from our desks, by the time we walk out of the school and head back to your office you think, ‘Wow, that was great, I’m so glad that I did that.’”

MMP is proud to call CTP a partner and friend to mentoring, and we look forward to celebrating with EWMB and CTP tonight at the Prudential Center.

If your company is interested in getting involved with mentoring, visit our web site for a list of ways to support youth in your community. You can also contact Director of Marketing and Partnerships Rich Greif directly at rgreif@massmentors.org.

Big Sister’s success with our back-to-school campaign

Nikki White is the recruitment coordinator at Big Sister Association of Greater Boston

At Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, our mission is to help girls realize their full potential by providing them with positive mentoring relationship with women. This year, our goal is to serve 3,000 girls, which we do through our Community-Based and School-Based 1-1 Mentoring and our Group programs.

The School-Based program, in which we partner with nearly 30 schools and community sites, is where we focused our marketing efforts for Mass Mentoring Partnership’s Back-to-School Mentor Recruitment Campaign. This one-to-one mentoring program creates matches between elementary school girls and women mentors. They meet once a week throughout the academic year, at the girl’s school either during her lunchtime or after-school program. Each match decides how to spend their time together, whether it’s playing board games, reading a book together, or reviewing homework assignments.

We designed three strategies with the seed grant we were awarded through this campaign. First, we promoted our Facebook presence and brand visibility through Facebook ads directed to our page. Second, we promoted our School-Based program through Facebook ads directing to our website and targeting the hard-to-reach neighborhoods of Charlestown, Dorchester, and Quincy. Third, we are placing ads in neighborhood e-newspapers directed towards our School-Based program in those same neighborhoods for National Mentoring Month in January.

The first strategy increased our “likes” on Facebook in November by 57% with 40 new likes in one week. We moved from 18 daily users of our page to 64. Although we had been seeing consistent growth of traffic to our Facebook page, we hadn’t seen this large of an increase before.

For the second strategy, we saw the same click-through rate of 133 being directed towards our Become a Big Sister page. In the week prior to our campaign, we saw 1.8% of the people who went to the Big Sister Association website come from Facebook. In the week of the campaign, 12% of the people going to our website were coming from Facebook. In November, we had also seen correlations in the increase of applications and inquiries coming in through the media.

The third strategy that we are going to implement is placing School-Based ads in specific neighborhood newspapers in Dorchester, Charlestown and Quincy in January when college students are coming back from school vacation.

We know that the back-to-school months are a crucial time to recruit women mentors. Fall is the start of a new year for many women. It is the season where college-age women fall back into the college schedule and it is also a time where working women have come back from a variety of summer activities and are ready to be involved in their community. By being able to create targeted Facebook advertisements during this busy time, it allowed us to reach women who we may not have been able to reach through typical event recruitment.

Meet the match: Jacky and Michaela

For the eighth consecutive year, New England’s World Champion Nose Tackle Vince Wilfork and The Safety Insurance 98.5 The Sports Hub New England Patriots Radio Network have teamed up with Mass Mentoring Partnership, to ensure that more young people are connected to caring adult mentors who will listen to them, stand by them and guide them. As a part of this initiative, Wilfork and 98.5 have extended invitations to mentor/mentee matches in the MMP network to attend a home game, and MMP chooses a match for each game based on the most compelling stories submitted. On game day, chosen matches are met by Bianca Wilfork and 98.5 The Sports Hub.

This is a highlight of the match that attended a home game this season.

Jacky and Michaela at the Pats-Chiefs game on Nov. 21

Jacky, 18, and her mentor Michaela have been matched for five years through the Big Sister Big Brother program at Old Colony Y. They attended the Pats vs. Chiefs game in November, thanks to the generosity of Vince Wilfork, his wife Bianca, and The Safety Insurance 98.5 The Sports Hub New England Patriots Radio Network as Wilfork’s “Match of the Game” coordinated through Mass Mentoring Partnership.

In Michaela, Jacky finds a safe, trusted confidante in whom she can share her feelings and challenges. They enjoy going on walks, playing with Michaela’s nieces and nephews, and catching up with one another over a meal.

“The relationship Jacky and I have nurtured over the last five years is one we both cherish,” Michaela says. “I would certainly recommend the Big Sister Big Brother program to anyone who has love to share and gain.”

The Y’s Big Sister Big Brother program, affiliated with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, is proud to provide children ages 6-18 with positive, caring adult mentors. For more information: www.oldcolonyymca.org.