The Ripple Effect

 By: Jennifer Goddard Taken from an article "The Tutor" from Bank Street college of Education; Fall 2007

Adults of all ages and backgrounds enrich the lives of young people by volunteering as mentors. These caring adults help guide their young counterparts to become better workers, athletes, learners, and citizens. Mentoring can be an effective way to help youth become capable young adults.
Research shows that formal one-to-one mentoirng can successfully reduce the incidence of delinquency and substance abuse among youth and can promote positive outcomes such as imporved self-esteem, academic achievement, social skills, and career development.
With all these benefits, imagine what can happen when volunteering together becomes a featured aspect of the mentoring relationship! The rewards can be multiple: volunteering together builds civic responsibility while helping youth to identify their skills, values, and important role helping address community needs. Serving the community together can deepen the mentoring relationship as the mentor and mentee connect with each other and the larger community, whichalso benefits in turn. Like the ripple effect created by dropping a pebble into a pond, pairing mentoring and service can amplify and extend the benefits.


What's the Big Idea? Potential Activities for Matches

There are many community service activities that matches can do alone or with other mentor/mentee pairs, such as:
~ Walking/grooming animals at a local shelter
~ Volunteering at a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter
~ Visiting the elderly or "adopting" a grandparent
~ Helping in a neighborhood/park/community center clean-up
~ Raking leaves/shoveling snow/mowing lawns/chopping firewood for an elderly or disabled neighbor
~ Making cards for the elderly and/or children in hospitals
~ Collecting or sorting supplies to benefit a local shelter or library
~ Collecting or sorting school supplies for needy students
~ Participating in charity walks/runs
~ Distributing food or gifts for needy families during the holidays


Tips for Mentors

One Mentor offers the follwing advice, based on her experience volunteering at the Humane Society with her mentee:
~ Select an activity of real interest to your mentee and clear it through your program and the mentee's parent/guardian(s).
~ Be prepared if your mentee balks at responsibility. This mentor's mentee almost backed out because he didn't think he would be able to sit through the meetings at the beginning. They made a deal that if he needed a break, they would take one, even if nobody else was.
~ Coach your mentee through difficult times and know when to choose another activity. This mentor's mentee says he wants to quit whenever they hit a rough patch. And after four months, he begins to get a little bored.
~ Discuss the volunteering process ahead of time and include your mentee in the process as much as possible.
~ Know your mentee pretty well before starting to volunteer together.
~ Divide and conquer. If certain duties seem tough, split them up. Sometimes this requires coaching through the activity, or making deals: "If you can get through this, we can do that."
~ Provide positive reinforcement, such as "You really worked hard on the project," or "You put a lot of thought into the process." For this match, working at the Humane Society would sometimes wear them out. They made a deal that on those days, they would go out for ice cream after.


Talking About Volunteering Together

Whether you're a mentor or a program staff member, here are some suggestions for initiating conversations:

1. Model the subject. "Something I really like [or care a lot about] is..." Allow wait time for your mentee to respond. Ask, "What is something you really like [or care a lot about]? Remind your mentee of topics they mentioned before, if necessary.
2. Based on her response, try to find common ground (remember, you're discussing this together because you'll be volunteering together.) Ask if they would like to spend some of your time together volunteering, Then, propose to research an activity together that would benefit the cause you've identified.
3. Younger children tend to respond to causes that concern animals, other children, and the elderly. Teens also tend to be passionate about these causes, as well as the environment, poverty/inequality, and the homeless.