With Purpose Success, part 69

Each school setting has its own vibe. A child could be highly successful and active in elementary school but lose that in a middle school that is four times larger. The issues only compound as kids work their way to college. "They may be going from a position of being well known and active and energetic and highly integrated socially to one where they know very few people," says Carr. "Now they're faced with a lot of older kids who might push them around or just make it more difficult for them to feel like they're part of things. By establishing a mentoring program to help with the transition you increase the likelihood that they're going to continue to be productive and get the grades that they need, and reduce the likelihood of social problems, particularly those associated with alcohol and drugs." 

Whether at work, at school, or in your family or community, I'll bet you have skills and experience that others can learn and benefit from- and which will help you form mutually beneficial connections to folks outside your generation. The National Mentoring Database (look them up at www.mentoring.org) lists 4,100 organizations that specifically support youth mentoring programs. It is estimated that some three million adults in the United States have formal one-to-one relationships with kids who are not their own, and in polls virtually every last one of them say they would recommend to their friends that they become a mentor. These relationships last, on average, for nine months but many go on for years- and keep enriching all the parties involved. They need your help. 

Making a Lifetime Friend 

Michelle Mundy, thirty-eight, was in her first job in the advertising department at Texas Monthly, a magazine, back in 1992 when her employer decided to partner with Communities in Schools, a national mentoring organization. Mundy, who lives in Austin, Texas, thought it would be a good way to give something back. So she signed up to mentor a bright- eyed five-year-old with absentee parents, Angela Wilborn, who was being raised by her grandmother, and the arrangement flowered into a full- fledged friendship of seventeen years-and counting. "I will never forget our first meeting," says Mundy, who was just twenty-two at the time. "This little kindergartner had the biggest smile. 

She was so excited to meet me, and that made me excited. There was definitely a connection for us right away." It doesn't always work like that, 

Mundy says. Years later, after her formal mentorship with Wilborn had ended, she tried again-twice-but never felt the same kind of connection. 

But with Wilborn it seemed natural, and the relationship ultimately brought meaning and perspective to both of their lives. With invaluable guidance from Mundy, Wilborn became the first in her family to graduate from college (with multiple job offers)-and Mundy was proud to be at the commencement with her own daughter at Johnson & Wales 

University in Providence, Rhode Island, to help celebrate.

It all started when Mundy began meeting Wilborn as a very young girl once a week to help with schoolwork, or eat lunch, or play jacks, or just listen. "She really looked forward to my visits," Mundy says of Wil born. "If I had a conflict and couldn't make it, it was a really big deal to her and that made it a big deal to me. I had to show up." Says Wilborn: "Every Friday she'd show up no matter what. She'd congratulate me on my grades or talk to me if I was in trouble. Later, she motivated me to stay in school. There were times I thought I'd quit. But she wouldn't let me."