by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
While many members of the downtown workforce spend their lunch breaks making a frenzied noontime dash to the Landing for a quick bite to eat, Charlie Hofmann heads over to the cafeteria at the John E. Ford Elementary School for his weekly lunch date.
For the past month, Hofmann, a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, has gone to the school once a week to be a mentor for an 8-year-old boy at the school. Hofmann became a mentor through an outreach program at John E. Ford Elementary run by the YMCA at the Bank of America Tower.
Kesha Ellerbee, outreach director for the YMCA at the Bank of America Tower, said Hofmann is one of about 25 mentors at the elementary school on the outskirts of Springfield. Ellerbee said the mentor program has been going on at the John E. Ford Elementary School for six years and has been the most successful program since YMCA started its outreach efforts in 1998.
Ellerbee said the program was started to give students at the elementary school an opportunity they normally would not have had.
“The students really enjoy having a bond with a person that is not a family member,” she said. “This isn’t someone that has to like them because they are an aunt or an uncle. This is somebody that is taking time off from their job to see them and all they care about is what is going on with their student and the kids feel really, really good about it.”
To become a mentor, applicants must first fill out a YMCA volunteer packet, which includes background and reference checks. After that process is complete, applicants must go through a three-hour training program by Kesler Mentoring Connection. Once training is complete, mentors fill out a mentor interest survey, which Ellerbee said helps better match the mentor with their charge.
“That gives us some background information for that mentor, like their likes, dislikes and strong areas,” she said. “We also have the potential ‘mentees’ fill out a form similar to that and we try get the best match possible based on the information that they give to us.”
Ellerbee said students are selected for the program by teacher or parent suggestion. Students in the program are usually chosen because they have some kind of deficiency in their lives, she said.
“All of the students that have mentors have them because they are lacking in some area or they may be doing poorly in some areas of school,” Ellerbee said. “Lacking not necessarily with learning disabilities, but they may have behavioral problems in school, their grades may not be the best, they may have some family issues at home where they may simply need a positive role model.”
After a match has been made, the mentor and the new protege have their first meeting. Ellerbee said that she usually sits in on the first meeting because both parties are often a little nervous.
Hofmann remembers his first meeting with a very shy little boy, but he said that things have changed.
“I met him at a luncheon they had at the school for the kids,” Hofmann said. “He was shy at first, as all of the kids are, but now he is always excited to see me when I come to the school.”
Hofmann said that his mentee is a pretty good student so they spend a lot of their time together throwing a football or playing games like monopoly or checkers, or just talking.
“It breaks up my routine at work and it makes me feel good about myself,” he said. “Basically, what you are doing is giving up a lunch break once a week, which I think is a very small sacrifice for what you get out of it. It is a very enriching experience.”
For more information about the mentor program, call
Ellerbee at 630-6540.