Volunteers Training for New Mentor Programs at Minnesota Schools

(KNSI) — Volunteers are spending the next two days at a training session in Maple Grove, preparing to be mentors with Girls Taking Action and Boys of Hope, which are expanding to St. Cloud.

The programs target at-risk youth in 27 different Minnesota junior and senior high schools. The trained adult role models help the students succeed in school and life.

Girls Taking Action co-founder Dr. Verna Cornelia Price says the program is seeing a greater level of student interest, which she thinks is connected to COVID-related shutdowns in the past few years, and “also coming out of the pandemic, with our young people being isolated, they really suffered. They lost a lot of ground; they lost a lot of ground with their mental health. The mental health stats, particularly for our young people of color they, are just staggering.”

Dr. Price says she has also seen an increase in the number of adults who want to be mentors, “particularly coming out of the pandemic and realizing just how human we are, and just how vulnerable we all are.” This school year, about a thousand students will participate in Girls Taking Action and Boys of Hope programs, including those enrolled in the newest school site coming to St. Cloud.

“I’ve had more mentors than ever this year call me and say, ‘Dr. Verna, how can I help? What can I do? How can I be a part of this because I really want to reach out to young people’; making that difference for them in a very tangible way. That one connection to a caring adult, a mentor, makes a world of difference.”

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Multi-media journalist Sheletta Brundidge contributed to this story.

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