Michigan Mentoring Month & AmeriCorps

Whew, what a month! This is Betsy Knoll serving with the 4-H Mentor Michigan Initiative and Ottawa County MSU Extension. Last month, mentoring programs around the state celebrated the 2010 Michigan Mentoring Month with a variety of recognition and recruitment events, as well as mentoring awareness campaigns. The photo here of me is with my mentee Katelyn. We had the great opportunity to speak at the Magic of Mentoring event, and we had a blast! All of the 4-H Mentor Michigan Initiative members worked diligently on their own Michigan Mentoring Month projects and I am proud to share what one of my fellow members did!

Kristy Oosterhouse, AmeriCorps member serving at Eaton County MSU Extension with the Supporting Teen Opportunities Mentoring Program (STOMP) supported Michigan Mentoring Month by hosting the STOMP Extravaganza. The STOMP Extravaganza was held on January 23 at Kardel Hall in Charlotte and invited families of all ages for a night of fun carnival games. The event also recognized two of the mentors for their involvement in the program. It looks like there was a lot of fun going on, check out the pictures. Congratulations to Kristy for putting on this great event during your year of service!

There were great things going on all over the nation for National Mentoring Month, including at the Whitehouse. Yep, I said the Whitehouse! As part of National Mentoring Month, the Michigan Youth 4-H Mentoring Program, a part of Michigan 4-H Youth Development Programs, was selected to represent 4-H Youth Mentoring nationwide at an event at the Whitehouse. The Corporation for National and Community Service requested a match from the Journey 4-H Youth Mentoring Program of Ottawa County because of their state and national recognition through becoming a 4-H Program of Distinction and for receiving the Outstanding Mentoring Program Award at the 2009 Governor’s Service Awards. Oh, by the way, did I mention that Journey 4-H Youth Mentoring is where I am serving?

Needless to say, we were so thrilled at Journey 4-H to be able to offer this opportunity to one of our matches. Andrew (mentor) and Ryan (mentee) shared the stage with President Obama during a portion of the event held on January 20 in Washington, D.C. The match even had the opportunity to shake the President’s hand and he asked Ryan what his name was. I wasn’t able to attend the event, but everyone who went agreed it was an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity. Ryan even described the event as “epic” and “pretty awesome.” Check out some pictures of Andrew and Ryan hamming it up in DC and the Whitehouse and also shaking the president’s hand.

It was a great month for mentoring in the state of Michigan. Now, I can’t promise a trip to the Whitehouse, but I encourage you all to seriously consider volunteering as a mentor. You don’t have to be a hero, or a tutor. You just need to be there for a youth. Contact a mentoring program in your area by visiting www.mentormichigan.org and pass it on to a youth today!