By Burke Jensen
Jed Brinton, one of five student service coordinators at BYU, entered the Provost Elementary School and asked where to go to volunteer for the mentoring program.
'I found the classroom and entered,' he said. 'The entire class stopped, and I explained I was there to mentor a student.'
The teacher had already set aside a student for Brinton to work with.
The Provo School District Mentoring Program helps 400 students, providing great benefits to the college volunteers and the youth they mentor, but more can be done.
'We have a large need of volunteers,' said Helen Alexander, the school district''s current program coordinator.
The district expects mentors to commit to a full school year in order to keep some stability in the students'' lives. This year, 50 mentors could not continue during Winter Semester because of scheduling complications.
Alexander hopes to fill those 50 positions soon.
The program requires mentors to serve one hour per week - arranged according to the volunteer''s availability, said Kelli Barbour, BYU''s program director for the Youth Mentoring Program. The school district provides a one-hour training session before the mentors begin working with their students.
Mentors go to the student''s school and take him or her out of class, said Brinton. The student and the mentor spend a half hour doing schoolwork. They spend another half hour doing whatever they like.
The goal of the program is to help all students have another caring adult in their life, Alexander said.
'There really is a need and this (mentoring students) is something every BYU student has to offer,' said Brinton. 'Weekly contact with a righteous living person that cares can make a huge difference.'
BYU is a great place to recruit mentors because of the large foreign language pool, Alexander said.
The experience is beneficial for the mentors because it forces them to reach out and think of someone else for an hour, Alexander said.
'My younger sister is 12, so it''s kind of neat. It helps me understand her more and feel more connected to her. It reminds me what kids are like,' Brinton said.
'BYU students have the wonderful opportunity to realize the affect that they can have on other people,' said Barbour. 'By simply becoming a mentor, they not only get to develop the gift of charity, but also get to realize the importance of one human being on another.'
The Provo School District Mentoring Program started eight years ago, said Alexander. The mentoring program during her first year of being coordinator only had 200 volunteers. Three years later, there are 400 volunteers.
'Most of the students are at risk,' Alexander said. Some of the most common issues include single-parent homes, language barriers and monetary problems.
Alexander''s assistant, Cora Barrett, brought a student to the Cougareat and told him he could have anything he wanted. The student ordered several items but hardly touched them. He explained he was saving it for his hungry brothers at home.
Alexander helps coordinate five other programs. One of these programs includes bussing sixth graders to the Marriott School. They divide into groups and go on campus.
Dale Porter, the principal of Timpanogos Elementary, came up with that program, Alexander said. As a child, he visited BYU. The visit stirred a desire within him to attend college.
Through this program, he hopes to inspire other students to rise against the odds and become a college graduate, Alexander said.
'We don''t make a lot of money,' Alexander said, referring to her paid coordinator position. 'We do it because we love it.'