Mentor Coordinator Report
Stories & Quotes To Share:
“Spooky Season”
October has a distinct Halloween flavor when it comes to activities here at LMS. Costumes, spooky decorations and Jack-O-Lanterns are everywhere! So in the holiday spirit, the Be the One matches got the chance to decorate pumpkins! The pumpkins were donated to the program and given to matches that wanted to flex their creativity. Using sharpies, googly eyes, pipe cleaners and anything else they could get their hands on, they came up with some crazy and scary designs. Enjoy the photos!
“Pickleball Cures All”
Mentors and Mentees meet every week they can. This means that meetings can happen on days that are good and days that are bad. However, even on a bad day, meeting someone who you respect and enjoy hanging out with can flip the script. A student came into my office 10 minutes before his meeting, looking downcast and not talking. I asked him what was wrong and he told me that, “Everything has gone wrong today, I just want to go home and not talk to anyone.” He refused to say anything to me after that. The mentor arrived a few minutes later and noticed the normally talkative student’s bad mood. The mentor pulled out pickleball rackets and asked the student to come play. Fast forward to the end of the meeting, the student runs into my office smiling and chatting a million miles a minute. Pickleball has become the pair’s go to activity since, claiming that it can solve any bad day and make any good day better.
“Mentee vs Mentor”
Many mentees and mentors do activities that are competitive. Pickleball, chess, and boardgames all require them to play against each other. Very rarely do mentees and mentors have competitive moments outside of fun games or activities. Unless the pair happen to be fans of baseball teams that were competing in the playoffs. A mentee and mentor were talking smack about the Mariners and Blue Jays the day that both teams were scheduled to play game seven in the ALCS. They met again the next week and continued to talk baseball with the mentee playfully reminding the mentor that his team lost.
Highlights:
Current Matches: 14
New matches this month: 2
New matches to be started in Nov: 7
Waitlist: 16 students with 5 others giving me interest slips
Upcoming:
Mentor Equipping: 17th & 18th
New Mentor Orientation: 11/20
(No Meetings on 11/11)
(No Meetings on 11/14)
Number of Current Matches: 14
Submitted by Sammuel Van Kirk – vankirks@lynden.wednet.edu