chh@heraldsun.com; 918-1035
CHAPEL HILL -- Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps intends to inspire life lessons, but it's an experience Volunteers for Youth could do without.
Unfortunately, the agency has little choice since its Governor's One-On-One mentoring program funding was eliminated from the state budget.
But Volunteers for Youth, a local nonprofit agency, won't take no for an answer. The group intends to re-open the program in January on its own funds.
"It sounds to people sometimes as a frivolous or extra sort of thing to have a mentor," said Susan Worley, executive director of Volunteers for Youth. "But in fact, it's one of the best things we can do to help kids grow up to be effective adults."
The mentoring program, which formed the foundation of Volunteers for Youth and part of a state-wide initiative started by then-Gov. Jim Hunt in 1981, matches 7- to 17-year-old kids across Orange County with an older adult.
About 50 percent of the children come through the juvenile court or law enforcement system, said Scott Dreyer, Governors One-On-One program coordinator, and the Department of Juvenile Justice used to fund the program before the budget cuts.
Other clients are referred by the Orange County Department of Social Services, school counselors and even parents who see the need for a positive role model in the child's life.
The kids are matched carefully with mentors, who come from a range of ages and backgrounds. Although most mentors tend to be in their 20s and 30s, and many are UNC students, some mentors are into their 70s.
This mix of mentors is important because it gives a variety of matches for the kids.
"You just can't match them with anybody," said Peggy Hamlett, chief court counselor for the Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Orange and Chatham counties. "It's very important because you want to make sure it's a long-lasting relationship."
With the funding cut, however, Governor's One-On-One has delayed matching kids with mentors since the summer.
The program primarily used the funding to pay the salaries of the coordinators who recruit, screen, train and supervise volunteers. Such paid staff is crucial to mentoring programs because studies show that effective programs need that consistent structure, Worley said.
Although she said she can't speak for the state Legislature, Worley thinks the main reason the mentoring program got the ax as opposed to other county programs is because it's a prevention program.
"It's hard for people to understand that prevention is as important as intervention," she said.
And Governor's One-On-One achieves that prevention by providing youths with a constant, friendly presence.
"Studies show that protective factors for delinquent youth, one of the most important factors is having a positive role model and having that one person who will stick with you through the thick and thin," Hamlett said. "It's the one thing that can keep youth on the right track."
Even the kids who haven't gone through the juvenile delinquency system benefit from the specialized attention. Many come from single-parent homes with the provider working more than one job, and often times boys lack a male role model.
"A lot of the kids that we try to reach need someone else in their life, an extra outlet and extra support system," Dreyer said. "They just don't have that influence in their life at that point."
To keep the program alive, Volunteers for Youth will try to raise the money to fund the program on its own. The agency hopes to raise about $50,000, most of which would go toward paying the salaries of the two permanent staff and the rest of which would fund larger group activities for mentors and the youth.
The program already has raised about $15,000 from the annual golf tournament held in September, has sent out requests for donations from individuals in the community and has applied for several grants. Volunteers for Youth hopes to start making matches again in January 2010.
"It's going to be a stretch," Worley said. "We're cautiously optimistic."
Worley also said that Volunteers for Youth would continue fund-raising in February and March and that the program would make matches in January whether all the funding was there or not.
"It may be tough for a while, but I guess just suck it up and just make it work," Dreyer said.
The program should remain essentially the same for the remainder of the year, with the exception of mentor training meetings and group activities, such as cookouts, field days and holiday parties. One such event involved members of the UNC football team.
"That's something I could never pull off for just Mia and I," said Megan Anderson, a senior elementary education major at UNC and mentor for Mia Johnson-Davis. "That was an incredible experience for her."
This type of local flavor sets the Volunteers for Youth Governor's One-On-One program apart, Anderson said.
"I think that small, local programs like this one meet the needs of children in a way that larger, similar programs cannot," she said. "While Big Brothers Big Sisters is a great program, I think that this small, Carrboro-based program can better meet the needs of the kids in the area. It knows the people."
