School starts in a few weeks and volunteer-based organizations all over the country are beginning to look for people who will share time, talent and dollars to help them connect with at-risk kids.
I've been blogging with Suzanne Morse, of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, and today the title of her blog is New Wiki Articles on Dropout Projects, Mentoring, and Youth Engagement. I encourage you to visit the Act Now section of the Best Practices wiki and look for ways that you can incorporate these ideas into company communications, your United Way campaign, or in sermons and media reports.
Once you begin to write about tutor/mentor programs, your next step is to point to links that help people shop for where they get involved. I encourage you to use the Program Locator and Program Links sections of the T/MC web site, as well as national volunteer search engines, to find programs near where you work or live.
If there are no programs near you, or if they don't serve a youth at the right age group, then use the information in the Tutor/Mentor Resource Library to begin the steps to start a new program to fill this void.
What we do now to help volunteers connect with kids, can help prevent drop outs, gang violence, and make a lifetime of difference for kids who have too few adult supports and learning activities in their own personal network.
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