By Vicki Rumpsa, Kids Hope USA Director
Just numbers? No way! I didn’t spend time looking through old Kids Hope records for nothing. What I did was look at the all the Mentor lists of the last 16 years and recorded the number of Mentors who have volunteered for our Hope Church’s Kids Hope Program each year and then added them up: 260.Yes 260! Some of those Mentors served more than one year, but even taking that into consideration, close to 150 of you have mentored a child at Vanderbilt Academy. In addition to Mentors, the lists had the names of Prayer Partners for each Mentor as well as Substitute Mentors. Add these to the number of those who have served as Mentors and you get a pretty big number. What it shows is that Hope Church has supported Kids Hope with an amazing number of volunteers and that is a blessing! And we continue to do so…
This past year we had 12 wonderful Mentors go to Vanderbilt Academy 1 day a week from October to May to mentor a student there. This group included 1 returning new Mentor, a new Mentor from another church, and 1 new Prayer Partner. One of our current Mentors will be entering his sixth year of mentoring; other current Mentors have served for multiple years, and most of them are planning to mentor this year, too. This group had a powerful influence on the young lives of the students they mentored. It’s a wonderful thing what 1 hour a week will do. For them I am so thankful!
We did not, though, have enough Mentors last year to cover the kids that Vanderbilt recommended to us last year. Third Church was able to provide 21 Mentors, which was wonderful: Together we could serve more children. Midyear there were new requests where a Mentor could not be found, and it is those students who now hope for a Mentor this year. As a competitive person, I find the numbers 21-12 don’t sit well with me. While I am thankful for Third Church coming up with more Mentors, I think Hope Church can do better. Third Church has the luxury of Kids Hope being a fairly new program for them, and thus members of their church are signing up for the first time. We have hundreds of you who have served in 1 capacity or another for the Kids Hope Program, and because of that I am optimistic that some of you will consider returning to volunteer this year and increase our participation numbers.
16 & 8: What are those numbers about? I took the number 260 and divided it by the number of years our church has been a part of Kids Hope. I found that we average providing 16 Mentors on any given year. Last year we were 4 below our average, and this year, with 1 Mentor stepping down and 3 moving up to the Kids Hope Next Program, we will have 8 mentors to begin the school year. What that means is that I need 8 new or returning Mentors to join our group of 8 so that we can get back to our average of 16 Mentors.
One absolutely fantastic thing is that Karen Pearson of Hope Church is the new Director of Kids Hope USA and has already contacted me about the possibility of mentoring this year. Karen was a Mentor before so she has already been trained and will only need a refresher on mentoring and information on anything new. Then she’s ready to be assigned a student and work out her time for mentoring with her student’s teacher. This last part is important for you to know, as you and the teacher work out the time for mentoring so that it fits your schedule as well as the schedule of the child.
The same goes for you if you have already been a mentor in the past. It’s a simple process and you’ll be ready to go! if you are new to mentoring, there are training videos you watch online at your convenience, and then you and I work out a time to go over anything else you need to know. It is as easy as that and again we make it so it fits your schedule.
If you cannot spare 1 hour a week there are 3 other opportunities you can sign up for that support our Kids Hope Program:
- Special Events Helper for 1 or 2 special events throughout the school year. One event will be in the Fall at our church.
- Baker/Maker to provide cookies or food for special events
- Substitute Mentor who will be trained but does not want the commitment of mentoring every week.
So there you have it. My article in numbers. The next step is yours. I ask that you pray about it. If you feel called to be a part of Kids Hope this year, I hope you will sign up. There will be 4 sign- up sheets on the Kids Hope Bulletin Board in the Gathering Area, and I will be around to answer any questions you may have.
1 Child, 1 Hour, 1 Church, 1 School. This is the Kids Hope promise. Will you be the 1 to answer the call?
