We had a wonderful recruiting period this year and are so happy to announce that Vern Boersma, Dave Dirkse, Jackie Knoll, Barb Knoops, Tim Pennings and Chad Stanley have joined our program as mentors. Additionally Claire Heyboer has returned as a mentor and Signe Johnson, Norma Killilea, Dave Boelkins and Marlin VanderWilt have become members of our corps of substitute mentors. New prayer partners are Josh Bochniak, Todd Engle, Maggie Hollis and Loretta Smith. Chad, Maggie and Signe were recruited by Jonathan Brownson as part of our partnership with New Community/Fourth Reformed. Please join us in welcoming all of them to active participation in Kids Hope.
Thanks to our 14 returning mentors and our six new mentors, we have been able to increase the number of Vanderbilt children with whom we work to 20 which is a number we have not reached in many years! We are grateful for this opportunity and ask for your continued prayers for our program as a whole, our mentos, their prayer partners, and the substitute mentors who are all valuable and necessary parts of our Kids Hope team.
One additional matter for prayer is the fact that despite a really excellent response to our request for new mentors, we have received more referrals from teachers than we can serve at this time. If you are aware of anyone else within the congregation who has been considering the possibility of mentoring, please make them aware of the three children (a 2nd grade boy, a 3rd grade boy, and a fifth grade boy) on our waiting list. We would be more than happy to provide any new volunteers with one-on-one training. For more information, please call Anne Duinkerken or Barb Joldersma.
~Anne Duinkerken and Barbara Joldersma, Kids Hope USA Co-Directors