Power 4 Youth, an academic mentoring program for middle-school students, will host a no-obligation information meeting for prospective volunteers on Tuesday, Aug. 30 at 6:30pm at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 370 Junipero Ave., one of the five community sites the organization operates.
Each mentor meets weekly, one-on-one with a student at a Power 4 Youth site, and free training and support are provided for all mentors throughout the year.
“Mentoring provides youths facing adversity with someone who cares about them, shows them that they are valued and assures them they can achieve their highest potential,” said Samana Budhathoki, Power 4 Youth match supervisor. “Yet, one in three young people will grow up without a mentor. Therefore, I urge people to offer 1.5 hours of their week to build the future of our community and our youths.”
Budhathoki, who recruits, matches, supports and retains students and mentor-volunteers, is beginning her second year with the organization. She said Power 4 Youth began as a project of a local Presbyterian church in 1998.
“They had sold a property and put the money into a foundation to reach out to the neighborhood. Power 4 Youth was initiated as an idea of two pastors who thought of helping middle-school kids that were struggling at school,” Budhathoki said. “We officially started in 1999 with six kids and six mentors. We gradually grew our numbers, but in 2008 the recession hit the nation, and it highly impacted the churches as well. So, they had to lay the program off.”
However, because they still had 35 kids and mentors in the program, Val Parker, the program’s executive director and founder, decided to establish Power 4 Youth as an independent 501c(3) nonprofit organization.
Today, Power 4 Youth operates mentoring sites at five different churches— three in Long Beach, one in Lakewood and one in Bellflower.
The nonprofit requires mentors to attend a no-obligation orientation meeting, where they learn details of the program and its structure, get a quick training on what to expect and how to work with teens and have their questions answered.
“We also hold an in-call interview— as a follow-up to the orientation— where we discuss the needs and preference of the mentors,” Budhathoki said. “Then, we do a Department of Justice background check before they officially start. In addition, we necessitate the mentors to provide us with a copy of their driver’s license and proof of insurance.”
The students are mostly found through referrals by school counselors and/or case managers, but others come from social-service organization referrals, word of mouth, online searches and occasional recruitment drives.
“Youths are looking for support and guidance,” Budhathoki said. “They want someone to care and not give up on them. This new school year, we hope to uplift the lives of more youth in our community, so the need for volunteers is greater than ever before.”
Although Power 4 Youth provides support for mentors throughout the school year, the organization places particular emphasis on what it calls the closure process at the end of a school year or if a mentor knows the mentoring relationship will be coming to an end. Budhathoki said this process is one of the most important phases in mentoring because it establishes a stepping stone to other relationships in a student’s life.
“If not done properly, it may lead to feelings of rejection and abandonment, especially if you are working with at-risk youths, who have experienced loss of a parent or loved ones, incarceration issues at home, the uncertainty of a home struggling with drugs or alcohol, or spent time in foster care,” Budhathoki said.
[aesop_image imgwidth=”500px” img=”http://www.signaltribunenewspaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Screen-Shot-2016-08-25-at-2.38.00-PM.png” align=”right” lightbox=”on” caption=”Corinne Sierzant (left) mentors Diana Lopez at one of the local Power 4 Youth program sites.” captionposition=”right”] She added that the closure process serves many purposes, including providing the opportunity to celebrate success and look back at growth and positive time spent together.
“It opens up a perspective for both students and mentors to look back on each other’s involvement and identify the benefits out of the time spent together,” she said. “The pairs get a chance to say ‘thank you’ or ‘good-bye.’ For most of our youths who are at-risk, this may be something new to learn. A planned closure allows the student to have a sense of stability and security, which may not be a common occurrence for most of our youths. It is a way of showing or role-modeling to them that not all relationships have to end in a negative way.”
Lastly, from the program’s point of view, Budhathoki said, it serves as a formal endpoint and a tool for tracking, evaluation and improvement.
One individual who is quite familiar with the organization’s process is Lynohila Ward, who, during her undergraduate studies, served as Power 4 Youth’s site supervisor and administrative assistant, but then, after observing the benefits to both the youth and adults, became more directly involved in mentoring students. She officially became a mentor three years ago.
“After witnessing the life-changing impact the volunteers had on the youth— and the youth had on the volunteers— I knew it was a program I had to get involved in,” Ward said. “As a prior at-risk youth myself, mentoring has gotten me where I am today, so I understand first-hand the importance of having caring role models in the lives of youth.”
She said another reason she got involved is that, as a young African-American woman, she saw that the spirit of volunteering is largely lacking in her community.
“So, I wanted to counter that in the hopes that volunteering becomes a norm in the African-American community and that young, black members of society begin to become more involved in nurturing the future leaders of tomorrow,” she said.
Ward added that the program helps the students in a variety of ways.
“Outside of academics, which is the main focus of the program, it helps to address larger issues that may be impacting their performance in school, whether that be social skills, home life issues, lack of self esteem, friendships, etc,” she said. “Because each youth is unique, there is not a general impact on every kid, but through weekly interacting with caring adults, every youth comes out a better student and human being than as they entered. For my student personally, she has taken a greater liking to school and now sees education as a gateway to not only material success but a greater understanding and connection to the world.”
To find out more about the mentor information meeting and Power 4 Youth, call (562) 435-2352 or email info@power4youth.org.
