My University YMCA Mentoring experience

At the beginning of the school year, I looked for somewhere to volunteer where I could have a big impact. From my experiences, mentoring tends to have the strongest impact on youth so I knew that mentoring was what I wanted to do. From a scholarship I received called “The Page Scholarship” I was connected with Patti Niemand; the director of education efficacy and leadership at the University YMCA. She was very excited to hear from me and couldn’t wait for me to start. I loved her passion and dedication in what she did. After a few emails we came to the conclusion that their program “Gear Up” would fit me best. The goal of “Gear Up” is to help seventh and eighth graders acquire the skills necessary for success in high school as well as college, through sports and physical activities. That same day I met with Ms. Niemand to sign papers and provide some additional information so I could get started as soon as possible. The next week I was attending my first sight at Northeast middle school. From that day on, every Thursday me and a team of mentors and a sight lead would work with 7th and 8th graders from Northeast middle school to better inform them about college. We would play games with them that incorporated skills useful for college such as teamwork and brainstorming. After the games we would ask them how the skills they used could apply to college and if they had any further questions about college. We would have 3 hour trainings every month in addition to the mentoring, and trips to camps with just the mentors and sight leaders to work on our own skills in the hopes of better helping the kids. The majority of the kids we worked with had a working class background. Many of their parents hadn’t gone to college or even high school so they needed someone to tell them about the process and give them hope that they could indeed finish high school and go on to college. As a first generation college student, this really motivated me to put the time and effort in to create relationships with the students and answer any questions they had. Instead of leaving the UY after this semester, I hope to stay with it for the rest of my college career. Going into it I thought it would be very one sided in that I wouldn’t be learning very much but rather teaching the kids new things and answering questions but that hasn’t proven to be true. With the huge diversity of the students at Northeast middle school, I’ve gotten better at communicating with people of different backgrounds and cultures and have gotten better at working with kids. This will be very helpful in my future career as a dentists as i’ll be putting those skills to use on a day to day basis. In CLA 1005 we’ve talked about the challenges students from working class backgrounds face, but volunteering at the UY allowed me to see those challenges in reality. More than that, they allowed me to address the problems and do my part in solving them.

All in all I enjoyed every minute of working at the UY. Every person I worked with was fully invested in the kids and did everything possible to help the students. On their website are the words, “ We believe that when we devote our full strength to the Y’s mission and cause, work in partnership with others, and build on our history of innovation, we can address the most pressing issues of our time unlike any other organization” and they really live up to them. The program really showed me that I can make an impact in my community and allowed me to meet a lot of like minded people. Everyone there really enjoyed volunteering and truly enjoyed helping others. Being around people with those characteristics created a very enjoyable environment. I would highly recommend the University YMCA for anyone who wants to make a lasting impact and meet people with great values and morals. Although I was involved in Gear Up there are additional mentoring programs such as Healthy Kids Matter and Literacy Matters. Healthy Kids Matter and Literacy Matters both work with kids from kindergarten through sixth grade. They are both great programs and I have heard nothing but good remarks about them.

University YMCA Mentoring website: http://www.ymcatwincities.org/locations/university_ymca/college_students/

Address: 1801 University Ave. SE Minneapolis,MN 55414

Short glimpse of the UY (Provided by the university YMCA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzJE_bouTO4#action=share