Passion there but economy squeezes ability to give

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR TIME: Gail Gavin is given about 90 minutes each week from Citizens Bank to volunteer as a mentor at Winman Junior High School in Warwick, helping students with anything from homework to clothes choices. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
NO SUBSTITUTE FOR TIME: Gail Gavin is given about 90 minutes each week from Citizens Bank to volunteer as a mentor at Winman Junior High School in Warwick, helping students with anything from homework to clothes choices. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

At 7:45 a.m. on Tuesday mornings, Citizens Bank Equity Analyst Gail Gavin is in the cafeteria at Winman Junior High School in Warwick having a morning snack and chatting about homework or clothes or maybe boys with three 8th grade girls. Some mornings they play games. It looks like, and is, a casual get-together – but it’s also much more.
Gavin has been a volunteer mentor with the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership for 15 years, and she has mentored these three girls as a group for the last two years.
“It’s kind of like a breakfast club. We eat and socialize. There is a focus on literacy, but we don’t want to make it just about homework, because then the students might not want to come,” said Gavin, who coordinates eight mentors who offer their time, support and encouragement to a dozen students at Winman. All the students have permission from a parent or guardian to be in the mentoring program.
“Over time, you establish a relationship,” said Gavin. “We have more students at Winman who need mentors at the moment than we have mentors, so some are in a small group. But if I see one of the girls needs to talk, I just suggest that we take a walk.”
The confidential conversations sometimes turn toward what’s going on at home. One thing Gavin has found is that many more students are being raised by grandparents than used to be the case. Sometimes school work is on the student’s mind.
“Gail is really nice, and if you have a problem she’ll help you solve them,” said one member of Gavin’s trio, 14-year-old Destiny Irby-Whitford, in a conversation at the school with Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership staff member Marc Mainville, who got approval from the student’s family to provide the comments to Providence Business News.
“We play games and it’s really fun,” said Irby-Whitford.
But it’s not all fun and games and Irby-Whitford appreciates that. Gavin has helped her get more comfortable speaking in class. “She helped me talking to people out loud and presenting things because I’m not used to, like, talking to people as much as [other] people do, so talking to her helps,” said Irby-Whitford.
“Sometimes we have to present projects in class, and I really don’t like doing that and she’s helped with that,” said the student. “If I need her to read stuff, she will read it and give me feedback.”
The Winman Junior High mentoring program is one of more than 60 programs in a statewide network coordinated by the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. The programs have 4,400 mentors working with more than 5,000 students from elementary through high school.
A major concern of the partnership is that the number of mentors is decreasing, particularly on a corporate level.
Gavin has had the support of Citizens Bank since she began mentoring when she was inspired by a colleague who worked with the program. Gavin’s workday is from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and her weekly time at the junior high school program, until she returns to her office in East Providence at about 9 a.m., is approved as part of her work schedule.
But this type of corporate support, while it is still common, is not as commonplace as it once was, said Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership President and CEO Jo-Ann Schofield.
“We used to be able to walk into a place of business and recruit 10 members at a time – now we recruit one,” said Schofield, who has been leading the partnership for two years, but has been on the staff for 17 years.
The “do more with fewer employees” trend that has become so common in U.S. workplaces since the economic downturn and sluggish recovery has impacted mentoring.
“What we’re seeing is that more companies who previously allowed staff members to mentor during the workday haven’t changed their policy, but the individuals are feeling reluctant to leave work because of their added responsibilities,” said Schofield. “We ask for a one-year commitment from mentors because consistency is so important with these young people.”’ Some of that attrition of corporate mentors is being filled by community volunteers, many whose children have just left for college, some who have left the workforce for one reason or another and some who are retired and able to volunteer for the one-year commitment, which often lasts much longer, said Schofield. Young people at the start of their careers also frequently volunteer as mentors.
“We seem to have them at both ends of the spectrum, but our typical mentor is not 35 years old,” said Schofield. “That’s the time they’re likely busy with their own children and their work.”
While overall numbers from the 60 state programs vary in their styles of reporting data, the three programs managed directly by the partnership reveal the downward trend in mentors, and the decline in business-affiliated mentors.
During the 2008-09 school year, the programs in Warwick, Woonsocket and Aquidneck Island had 342 mentors paired with students, with about 72 percent of those mentors affiliated with a business, said Mainville.
For the 2013-14 school year, those three programs have a total of 283 mentors, with about 60 percent of them affiliated with a company.
“Our number of mentors ebbs and flows. It can be impacted by the economy,” said Schofield.
Even though the decline in the number of mentors has forced some students to be in a small group of four or less students with a mentor, that can have advantages, she said.
“We’ve found having them in a small group can work well because I think the kids feel like they’re not alone,” said Schofield.
“From my perspective, I feel like mentoring is one way companies can really invest in their own future,” said Schofield. “The kids in school today are their future customers and their future employees. It’s important to take the time to invest in the kids who need us.” •

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