Slide Show of Current and Past Matches

JANUARY IS NATIONAL MENTORING MONTH

By Jennifer Dempsey, January 2008

Edited version published in The Mountain Mail

 Jack Chivvis was nervous when he first started mentoring a 13-year old boy three and a half years ago.

“For the first year we were together he really didn’t talk too much, and I was like, ’oh man does this kid even like me?’” said the 68 year old artist and outdoor sports enthusiast. “But he was really wanting to do a lot of outdoors stuff. Even though he wasn’t a chit chatty kind of kid, everytime I took him out rafting or biking he’d rise to the physical challenge. We didn’t necessarily need to do a lot of talking.”

Chivvis credits Miki Hodge, founder of Chaffee County Mentors, for helping him make the transition from mentor to friend with the now 17 year old young man.

“Miki was tremendous,” he said. “She really helped me through times when I was like, ‘is this really working?’ It’s a little scary, getting matched up with some kid you don’t know and feeling this expectation that you have to do something, show them something, and not really knowing what that is.”

Through the program, Hodge secured a scholarship for the young man to go on a two-week mountaineering course.

“He had a huge breakthrough,” Chivvis said. “He was able to see how he stacked up against other kids, especially upper middle class kids. When he got back we had a thirty minute conversation on the phone. He just opened up after that.”

Chivvis and his mentee don’t see each other as much as they used to, but that’s because “he’s growing up and he’s busy,” he said. “He has a job and a girlfriend. He’ll be going off to college at the end of the year. As kids get to be about 15 or 16 they kind of naturally grow out of the program.  But I imagine some of the stuff we’ve done together, the biking, rafting, we’ll continue to do…because what’s happened is, we’ve become friends.”

Chivvis has encouraged other men to become mentors, something the program definitely needs.

“It’s not that much of a time commitment and it’s definitely a rewarding thing to do,” he said.

“The best part, well, it’s kind of hard to say or put into words. Just hanging out. My wife and I don’t have kids so we really haven’t hung out with a lot of kids until the last couple of years. It brings you back to your childhood. You’re able to look through their eyes. Until you do it you don’t really realize it. The buzz you get is amazing.”

January is National Mentoring Month and the Chaffee County Mentors are celebrating. Not only do they have 30 adult/child matches and more than 40 adult volunteers, but the award-winning program will celebrate its fifth anniversary this winter.

“The first year I had seven kids involved in Mentoring actitivies,” explained Miki Hodge, who founded the program in 2003. When she left four years later, more than 100 children were involved and the program had received several awards, including the 2004 Upstart Award. Chaffee County Mentors was also named the model program for the Colorado Health and Human Services for work with children in foster care.

“The mentors made it happen,” she said. “They are the ones who’d come up with incredible ideas of ways to tailor the experience for the kids. Mentors have to be flexible to tailor not only to the kids but also to the family. Mentoring is really about creating a friendship, and friendships take work, but they need to be fun.”

Fun and friendship are a big part of mentoring, but so is reliability, she said.

“Absolutely the most important part about being a mentor is being reliable,” she said. “If you create another unreliable adult relationship in that child’s life it’s actually more detrimental. Mentoring is about creating trust and reliability.”

Chaffee County Mentors provide one-to-one friendships to children in need of additional positive role models in their lives. Local youth ages 7 to 15 years facing challenges academically, economically and socially are matched with responsible adult volunteers. Volunteers meet with their child three times per month for a few hours at a time.

Children can be referred to the program through school counselors, teachers, social services and juvenile diversion efforts. Volunteer adult mentors must be at least 21 years in age, must have a genuine interest in young people, with the ability to commit to the program for at least one year. The adults serve as both a friend and an advocate for the youth. Mentors and kids have the opportunity to participate in monthly-organized fun and educational group activities and other structured benefits throughout the Chaffee County area.

The Mentor program also offers Couples Match, in which married couples can be matched to a child; and Family Matches, in which parents with children can be matched as a “family” to a child in the community.

When Hodge had a baby last year, she realized she wouldn’t have the time to run the program as she felt it ought to be run, so she passed on the reins to current program manager Eleanor Farhney.

“It was a very difficult decision to leave but I knew I couldn’t offer the quality it demanded,” she said. “It was always my goal that the mentors could reach me any time of the day. Mentors need a lot of support, they are on the front line. Eleanor took it on because she loved it as much as I did. I could not have asked for a better transition. If there’s anyone that’s going to do it right, it’s her.”

Colleen Kunkle, mentor

Colleen Kunkle got more than a mentee when she signed up with the Chaffee County Mentors. 

“She’s my new best friend,” the 53-year old businesswomen said laughing, referring to her 13 and a half year old mentee. “We see each other two or three times a week and we talk on the phone in between. She’s so much a part of my life. She’s like a member of my family, like a neice. She’s just a gem.”

Kunkle became a mentor last August, because, she said, after raising three sons she needed “girl energy in my life, and young girl energy. We have such a great time together.

She could care less if we just sat in a car and talked. She comes to my house, we knit together. We don’t do much that costs much money.”

She continued: “She keeps me laughing and smiling. Her observations are so keen and poignant, she’s a very bright young woman. The first day we met we ended up hanging out, paling around and falling in love. We talked about religion, boys and sex…nothing was sacred. We connect on so many levels. She’s always telling me how crazy she is about me and it’s so wonderful because I am crazy about her too.”

Jude Silva, mentor

Jude Silva became a mentor for “purely selfish” reasons.

“I have 13 grandchildren and they all live in California, so it was a way of getting some child energy into my life,” said the 67-year old artist and teacher who has mentored thwo girls over the past four and a half years. “It’s been a really good part of my life. I have been really fortunate with all of the young women I have worked with. Mostly it’s just spending time, just carrying on conversations, babble uninterrupted!” she said laughing. “I have had two babblers, both of them were like wind up toys. They wouldn’t be quiet until I dropped them off. They just loved being listened to.”

She continued: “I’m a pretty avid gardener, I have a pretty good vegetable garden every year. It’s great fun to be with the mentees, they can see things start, see it grow. (My seven year old mentee) was around when we planted squash seeds and her zucchini plants were awesome. The bigger the zucchini the happier she was. She truly believed they did it just for her.”

Silva described mentoring as a priviledge.

“If they don’t want you in their life they don’t have to let you in, both the mentees and the families,” she said.

Laura Knelange, mentor

For Laura Knelange, being a mentor means helping make a child’s dream come true.

“For (my mentee), her dream is to be an actress, so last year she tried out for Stage Left’s production of Charlotte’s Web. She and her sister made it and they were fabulous!”

A retired political lobbyist, Knelange said, the best part of mentoring is ”seeing the kids grow in self esteem and become confident, seeing them achieve goals and have opportunites they would have never had had. It means they get to experience things that wouldn’t otherwise be open to them. It allows them to expand their horizons, which is so important, especially in a small town, to let them know there’s more to do than Walmart and the military…that there is college and education.”

She said she would encourage anyone to consider mentoring.

“I think people are concerned about the level of commitment,” she said, “but it’s not overwhelming and it’s fun. It’s so well organized. (Program managers) Eleanor and Laurie (Coggins) are so supportive. It’s a really fun way to be involved in the community. I would have liked to have had an adult mentor when I was growing up!”

Eleanor Fahrney, program manager

“The mentoring program really taps into two main interests of mine: helping kids and linking adults with kids,” said Eleanor Fahrney, program manager of Chaffee County Mentors. “Mentoring helps people become involved in their community in a way that they might not otherwise. It helps our whole community get a sense of our whole community, rather than just our own particular circles we run in.”

Fahrney mentored for two and a half years before becoming program manager.

“Mentoring gave me the opportunity to build longer term relationship with a kid and to help connect her to our greater community. For instance, she’d never been to contra dance, she had never hiked, yet she had lived here longer than I had. By linking the two of us, we could then link her to the community.”

She said it is normal for mentors to question their roles at times.

“It’s a common thing for mentors to wonder if their role is really needed,” she said. “Then you start to wonder is this the kid to benefit the most? It was good for me to see that (my mentee) had a really strong relationship with her mom, yet I could still be an asset to her family. Having someone outside the family to talk to is incredibly powerful. It can actually increase the strength of the family overall.”

The Chaffee County Mentoring Program will celebrate its fifth anniversary on March 11, 2008 at the Frontier Ranch. For more information about how to become a Chaffee County Mentor or supporter, call 539-2630 or go to www.chaffeementors.org.