VCU's Virginia Mentoring Partnership shapes lives

By Mike Porter

It's late Tuesday afternoon and classes have ended at Richmond's Oak Grove Elementary School. But for some students, the school day is far from over. Their voices echo down the otherwise quiet hallway. Inside the classroom, more than 30 students are drawing and writing and answering questions about themselves. 

"Cheeseburgers are my favorite food," said one boy.

"I like the Washington Redskins," added another.

"My mom is someone I look up to," said one of the girls.

"My friends like me because I make them laugh," offered another.

The students created personal folders with information about their favorite things and drew pictures of the people they look up to most in life. These "get acquainted" activities are part of "Powerful Beyond Measure," a nonprofit program linking Virginia Commonwealth University students with elementary school children who will benefit most from their attention and support.

The VCU mentors spend time in the classroom with the children and their teachers each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. The mentors work more directly with the children after school on Tuesdays.

"We have five platforms we focus on with the children," said Latoya Johnson, a VCU senior majoring in biology. "We're emphasizing health, education, philanthropy, economics and political awareness."

The VCU student mentors serve as positive role models. They participate in "Powerful Beyond Measure" to give back to the community today and to prepare children for the future.

"I feel as though we have a disconnect," said Mulu Gerima, a VCU senior majoring in political science. "Our generation is lacking leaders and the best way to help with the issues of tomorrow is to start building leaders today."  

A very different mentoring experience takes place 20 miles away at Chesterfield County's Cosby High School. Here, Seth Leibowitz, Ed.D., director of VCU's pre-health and pre-law advising programs, addresses a class of 42 students. All are interested in pursuing medical educations and careers. They ask about declaring majors, choosing courses and how to pay for it all.

"The goal of this effort is to help the students think about which health profession they'd like to pursue, prioritize coming to VCU, and employ active learning by using technology," Leibowitz said. "We've offered a program like this to VCU freshman and thought it would be a good idea to offer it to students before they come to college."

In addition to lectures from health professionals, this service-learning program matches pre-health VCU students with Cosby students in a mentoring relationship.

VCU students help Cosby students learn about different health care careers, prepare a presentation on a specific health care profession and keep a journal about what they've learned. The high school students attend college courses with their mentor.   

"This whole program is helping me to sort things out," said Cosby sophomore Tim Owens. "I'm looking at where I want to put my focus, what I want to major in, what I'm thinking about doing as a job, and if that doesn't work out, what I would want to do instead." 

Mentors make a huge difference in the lives of children across Virginia and the nation and VCU's Virginia Mentoring Partership recognized that contribution during a special "Thank Your Mentor Day" forum and awards event on Jan. 30.

The Virginia Mentoring Partnership is holding its next orientation to mentoring training session on Feb 12. Visit www.mentoring.org/virginia or call 804-828-1536 to learn more.