Back-to-school campaign match highlight: Destinee and Kia

This guest post was submitted by Big Sister Kia from Big Sister Association of Greater Boston. Kia was matched with her Little Sister, Destinee, through MMP’s Back-to-School campaign last year.

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your mentee’s backgrounds.
   I am a physician assistant at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the eldest sister of four siblings. My Little Sister Destinee is 15-years-old and a 10th grader at a METCO school. Destinee has a younger sister who is 10-years-old and also a “Little Sister.”  We have been matched through Big Sister Association of Greater Boston for more than a year. We enjoy going to the movies, having pizza night, and spending time exploring museums and festivals around Boston.
2. How did you hear about the Back-to-School campaign and what prompted you to get involved as a mentor?
   I was prompted to become a mentor because I know the value of having a good mentor in your life to help you through various aspects in your life. There are so many pressures in a young girl’s life and navigating it alone can be a challenge. I have had great women in my life to help me with all the challenges that life has brought me. I just want to do the same for Destinee.
3. What impact has your mentoring relationship had on you and your mentee?
   One of the best moments for me is when Destinee had the courage to stand in front of a room filled with Big and Little Sisters to tell me how much I mean to her in her life. Helping her navigate the struggles with her mother while entering high school was a difficult time for her.  She mentioned that by encouraging her to communicate better, I helped her to have a better relationship with her mother today. It’s still a struggle but we take each battle one day at a time.
4. What would you say to those who are on the fence about mentoring (i.e. those who think they do not have enough time, expertise, etc.)?
   I’ve spoken with many women who feel like they don’t have the time or skills to give back to a young girl. When I share my personal experiences and tell them how rewarding mentoring is both for me and Destinee, people tend to reconsider. There are so many options Big Sister has in programming  that it makes it easier for women to see how they can fit in, especially if they already have that desire to give back to their community and help a young girl. I’m currently a community-based mentor and enjoy the ability to take my Little Sister to events locally. Speaking with other Big Sisters in different programming, I’ve seen they too have increased satisfaction spending time with their Little Sisters in their own way.

I believe in mentoring

This guest post is written by Roxanne Hoke-Chandler, who is the proud mother of two girls. She is a graduate of Lesley University and has been working for the Federation for Children with Special Needs for 10 years.

Four years ago, I signed my daughter up to have a Big Sister. It was important to me that she see life through someone else’s eyes, who had similar values and aspirations. I asked for a mentor who I thought could help expose and support my theme of education, community and self-worth to my daughter. Sometimes it is helpful for children to experience and learn things from people other than their parents, and we cannot solely rely on teachers – they have their hands full.

As her parent, I wanted more for her. I wanted her to have experiences and good times separate from her sibling who has significant special needs. I wanted and needed help nurturing her own identity. I needed a mentor for her.

When I asked her what type of mentor she wanted, she said “someone younger than you, mom.” I understood that statement. She did not want another mother. Then she said she wanted someone who looked like her. Truthfully, I was grateful she saw the value in that. We have plenty of positive people in our lives that do not resemble our heritage. If she was to bond with this Big Sister, it was really important to me that she was a woman of color.

A year after I made the request, on her 9^th birthday we got the call that a match was found. I was ecstatic for the match, but often wonder how many more children are waiting. I serve as a mentor for youth in my church, and remind young woman to give back and volunteer so that other children will not have to wait so long.

I am grateful to the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and our Big Sister for being a part of our lives. I encourage other women of color to become mentors and to impact the lives of young children in their community.

____________________________________________________

Ebony-Joy Chandler is in 7^th grade at Mother Caroline Academy. Her favorite classes are English and literature. She enjoys babysitting and tries not to spend too much time on the internet unless it’s for school work.

This December, my Big Sister and I will officially have been paired  for four years. I remember when I first found out that we were paired up with each other. It was my 9th birthday when I got a call from the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston. These last four years I’ve  shared have been a roller coaster. We’ve done everything from an intense game of laser tag to simply going to a library to play card games.

Every time I go out with her, I never really know what to expect from her. My Big Sister always finds a way for me to have fun. I think that’s because she has a son. He’s a couple of years younger than me but when we do get to go out together we always have fun. I think that my Big Sister might be so fun because of her son. Because she already has a young child, she knows what children will like. And because I am older than her child, she also gets a picture of what kinds of things he will like when he gets older.

I’ve had so much fun with my Big Sister. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have her in my life. I would forever be at home with nothing to do. I would have never been to a Red Sox game. She has made an impact in my life and I will always be grateful. She helped me make my childhood complete. She taught and showed me things that I didn’t even know were possible. She just ended up changing me in the best way. I love her and wouldn’t trade her for the world.

Why I am a mentor – the truth!

This guest post is written by Lesley White-Buefort, who serves on the Diversity Council of Big Sister Association of Greater Boston

I have a confession to make. I became a mentor as a way to meet people in my new community when I left Bermuda to take a job in Connecticut. My entrée into mentoring was completely selfish. That was around the spring of 2002. Since then, I have been a mentor, one-on-one to young ladies who were court mandated into programs, and young ladies who simply wanted a buddy, confidante or sister of their own. I have also been a mentor in a group setting, teaching basic baking skills to young ladies in a residential treatment center. As selfish as my reasons for becoming a mentor were, I feel like I get more from the young ladies than I give them. To me, mentoring is so very rewarding.

In 2004, I signed up with Big Sister Association of Greater Boston and became a Big Sister to a 14-year-old young lady from Dorchester – a match that lasted, in Big Sister’s files, until she turned 20. I chose Big Sister out of the many mentoring organizations in Boston for one reason: I believe that our girls are special and deserve programming specifically for them. I liked the fact that Big Sister’s focus was solely on girls.

Since I began mentoring, I have learned a few things about myself but more importantly, I’ve learned a few things about the importance of mentors in communities of color. Whether you are aware of it or not, there was no doubt someone in your past, or present that has had a hand in helping you to get where you are today – be it at work, socially, or in an educational setting. I believe that all of us who are able owe it to society to pay it forward.

Young women of color today face challenges in all aspects of their lives. The images they see in the media serve only to reduce their self-esteem. They are faced with bullying, which used to mean someone “picked on” someone else in the schoolyard. However, with today’s advancements in technology, young women, and young men for that matter, face bullying via electronics – a post on a Facebook page or Twitter feed takes that bullying to greater heights. Bullying that was once limited to the schoolyard and maybe the block now has the power to spread across the country. YouTube and other such websites have made it possible for young people to broadcast fights which unfortunately rack up thousands if not millions of hits in a matter of hours.

Studies have shown that young girls with mentors are less likely to be the victim or aggressor of bullying. Girls with mentors are less likely to get pregnant. They are more likely to graduate from high school and move on to college. Girls with mentors are less likely to join a gang or use drugs. Girls with mentors are more likely to become involved themselves in some form of community service.

Rather than volunteer as a mentor, I now sit on the Diversity Council of Big Sister Association of Greater Boston – our mission is to increase the number of women of color in the Greater Boston area. You do not need to be a lawyer, doctor or high-earning executive to be a mentor. You simply have to have the desire to help a young girl grow to her fullest potential. To paraphrase Aibileen Clarke in Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help,” each young girl DESERVES to grow up believing that she is kind, smart and important.

How mentoring shaped one woman’s life

January is National Mentoring Month, and we are highlighting a number of perspectives on mentoring, events, and ways you can get involved in the field. Today’s blog is a Q&A with Mandy Drew, who leads usability research, recruiting, and video projects at Alleyoop, a division of Pearson. Alleyoop is helping kids get ready for the 21st century workplace by attacking the college readiness problem. Mandy is equally passionate about helping teens realize their goals and aspirations, just as she did herself.

Mandy Drew

• Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born, raised, and casserole-fed in a small, rural town in the great state of Michigan. In some ways, I am still very much a product of that environment. In others, I know I owe my current successes to the many caring mentors who helped me believe in myself, showed me how to live up to my own potential, and made me understand that there is no limit to my own possibilities.

• Why do you think youth mentoring is important?

Growing up, I often felt the extremely conservative values surrounding me did not match the very liberal views I held. As a teen, I worried there was something wrong with me because I longed for a much less traditional lifestyle than what was typical of the region in which I lived. Without open-minded mentors to help me understand the world is a very big place with many different points of view, I may have continued down a path of alienation and disillusionment.

• Who were influential mentors in your life growing up? What did you learn from them?

Ms. Smith was my 11th grade history teacher, and she became a real mentoring force in my life. At the time, I was beginning to explore the feminist side of myself and I really loved how she taught not only the “male” side of history, but what she called “herstory.” She encouraged me to feel empowered as a female in an environment that found that type of thinking pretty subversive. I don’t know how she did it: not only was she going through a divorce that year, she was also battling breast cancer. By the middle of the year she had lost all her hair due to chemo treatments, yet she refused to wear a wig. She just wore her bald head to school with pride every day and eventually, as she recovered, her hair slowly grew back in. I remember thinking that was so brave of her. I TA’d for her my senior year and we both celebrated the day she grew enough hair that she could put it back in a tiny pony tail.

• What do you think is the most important thing a mentor can do for a child?

The most important thing my mentors did for me was to broaden my horizons. They showed me there was so much more to life than what I was currently experiencing. They told me how much better life could be and they told me exactly what I needed to do to get there: work hard and really commit to my education. It was hard waitressing my way through school—first through community college, then earning a bachelor’s degree, and finally achieving my master’s degree—but Ms. Smith was right. It was worth it to be where I am now.

• If you have personally been a mentor, tell us what that experience has been like. If your organization has been involved in supporting mentoring, tell us what you are doing and why your organization is involved in mentoring.

The Alleyoop team has a very strong commitment to supporting and mentoring young people in our community. Currently we’re working with students at Bird Street Community Center in Dorchester, and this month, we’re hosting students from Boston Collegiate Charter School. This spring we’ll be conducting our first job shadow days. Personally, I am in the process of becoming a Big Sister with the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, and I also serve on Boston Collegiate Charter School’s Collegiate Council.

• Complete this sentence. If every child had a caring adult in their life…

Then every child would have a chance to see beyond their current situation and understand there’s no limit to their own possibilities.

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.