By Ashlee LeSueur
Robert Measom, a 17-year-old junior at Provo High School, is a dreamer. His favorite class is Advanced Architecture and he already has plans for a 10-bedroom mansion, with bathrooms for each bedroom and an indoor swimming pool, which he will build in Ducshene when he earns his millions.
An octagonal window surrounds the spiral staircase in his dream house so people can look out the window as they climb the stairs, he said.
His bright eyes, his excitement for the future and his positive outlook are a stark contrast from his life a year and a half ago, when Measom couldn”t find a reason to stay alive.
“I had no good friends and I thought my life was worthless,” Measom said.
Kids all over the valley, some as young as five, who are in “at risk” environments or have emotional stresses are referred to the Slate Canyon Mentor Program, said program director Carla Sedillo.
They are referred by their schools, by the division of child and family services, by Wasatch Mental Health group and a few have even been referred by their parents.
“The mentor program deals mostly with kids that are not in trouble- yet. It is a preventative program for at-risk kids,” Sedillo said. “By the time they are in the system, it is very often too late.”
Sedillo, a social worker at the Slate Canyon Detention Center, noticed as she worked with the kids that volunteers usually had a more profound impact on the lives of the troubled youth than staff members did.
In the beginning of 1998 she began doing research and by January of 1999 the mentor program was organized.
“I think one on one mentoring by a volunteer is probably the best change agent in the world,” Sedillo said.
The mentor that has helped Measom see such dramatic improvements is BYU student Jacob Hess, a senior from Farmington, Davis County.
“Jake has been a really good friend to me,” Measom said. “He keeps me out of trouble and since I”ve been spending time with him, I”ve been better about going to church.”
The friendship is not one sided, Hess said.
“I love being with Robert. I feel us changing together. We talk often about how we are both learning together,” Hess said.
Hess said they spend time together every week, but that most of their activities are simple.
Because Measom loves architecture and wants to be a train engineer, the pair rode TRAX to go see The Testaments in Salt Lake. They visited some students in the BYU planning department, who let Measom produce his dream house plans on real blue prints.
Some nights they just practice reading or shoot pool at Hess”s apartment complex.
“On many weeks when I am busy, he comes and does something I already have to do like grocery shopping or a Family Home Evening service project,” Hess said.
Because most mentors in the program are just as busy as Hess, Sedillo said there are as many different kinds of mentor relationships as there are mentors.
One mentor is a medical school hopeful with a wife and a baby, Sedillo said. But he spends two hours every Thursday mentoring.
“Sometimes they just hang out at his house and eat dinner, or maybe they just talk, but what better thing could there be for a kid without a dad? He gets to take part in a happy family life, and is learning from a high achiever the patterns for success,” Sedillo said.
BYU statistics professor John Lawson has been a mentor for a year and a half. Right now, he mentors a boy in the Slate Canyon Detention Center.
They get along great because they both love basketball, Sedillo said.
“Since he”s in the facility right now, I can only see him for an hour a week so our activities are limited,” Lawson said. “I usually just go and shoot baskets with him.”
When the kid he mentors was out of the facility, Lawson said they would go to BYU basketball games or go to Lawson”s house for dinner.
“I am just a friend to him. A lot of kids don”t have a good home life and they just need an adult they can trust and get opinions from,” Lawson said. “I can tell he appreciates me coming down there.”
There are currently 100 kids being mentored and 40 more on the waiting list.
“That”s terrible to me,” Sedillo said. “I used to feel awful when I had five on the waiting list – we”re just growing so fast.”
Sedillo, a widow and mother of two grown up kids, called this project her baby. She puts in endless hours finding mentors and matching them with the right kids.
BYU students who want to mentor must be at least 21 years old, have access to a car and must be available to commit for a full year, Sedillo said.
“It is the continuity and the stability of the relationship that is important, not necessarily the length or nature of the activities,” Hess said. “These kids have had people failing them their whole lives and when their mentor does, it only makes it worse, instead of better.”
Sedillo explained that the caseworkers and counselors can work miracles, but a mentoring relationship has the potential to be even more powerful.
“Mentors are volunteers, they are not paid. They listen without taking notes and they don”t keep files on the progress. They love because they want to and they serve only because of love,” Sedillo said.
After an initial meeting with Sedillo, mentors attend a monthly training meeting to learn tips that help them be effective in the lives of the youth.
“This has been the best part of my BYU education,” Hess said. “If people knew how rewarding it is, they would jump at the chance to get involved.”
For more information on becoming a mentor, contact Carla Sedillo at the Slate Canyon Detention Center in Provo.
