Volunteers aid at-risk children

Paige Holloway has volunteered in her community for as long as she can remember. But until the fall of her junior year at UNC, she said she was dissatisfied with the typical “soup kitchen” experience.

“I didn’t feel like I was impacting anyone’s lives,” she said. “It’d be over and done with before I knew it.”

A senior psychology major, Holloway is now a mentor for the Volunteers for Youth program — and has found what she calls personal fulfillment.

Volunteers for Youth, a community organization established in 1982, has been matching University students and adults in Orange County with at-risk children and teenagers for more than two decades.

Also established in 1982, the Governor’s One-on-One Volunteer Program was created as a statewide initiative to help at-risk children, and Volunteer for Youth was selected to receive state funds through this program.

Scott Dreyer, program coordinator for the Governor’s One-on-One, said Volunteers for Youth, as a whole, exists to reach out to children.

In 1989, the Volunteers for Youth expanded to reach children who aren’t delinquent but who have an equal need for the time and attention that mentors provide.

Three years ago, Volunteers for Youth began the Horizons Mentoring Program, which provides students at New Hope Elementary School and A.L. Stanback Middle School with similar mentoring.

Besides the two programs, teenagers also can turn to the newly established Teen Court, a student-run court for secondary school students. Dreyer said, “we’re giving kids the extra edge they need.”

But there are more than 70 children waiting to get that extra edge. While Dreyer said he worried about maintaining funds for the Horizons program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education, he said one of his biggest concerns is community awareness and involvement.

Fortunately, while the Volunteers for Youth staff works on decreasing that wait ing list, there are about 45 mentors developing relationships with their respective mentees.

Like Holloway, who takes 15-year-old Amber to the batting cages and on hikes through the botanical gardens, mentors devote at least two hours a week to their younger partners.

Susanna Lewis, a junior psychology and exercise and sports science major, said she often spends almost four hours a week with her mentee, Keila.

“She looks at me like a role model and treats me like a big sister,” Lewis said.

With her “little sister,” Lewis goes bowling, eats at local restaurants and once spent many hours helping to build a model of the solar system that Keila was working on for school.

Crystal Pressley, a second-year medical student, prefers to take 10-year-old Chelsea to play basketball or read in the park.

Mentors attend a training session and a series of interviews to create the most successful match. Today, Dreyer, along with the other five Volunteers for Youth staff members, are training a new batch of mentors at their offices.

The staff will explain the roles and expectations of all those involved in the program, but it’s the experienced mentors who will bring what Dreyer calls a personal touch to the session.

Current mentors explain how to handle real-life situations and share their feelings and experiences with the new group.

“Volunteers for Youth is successful in helping people get involved and stay involved,” Holloway said.

Lewis, who was matched last June, hopes to continue with the program next year. She said she likes the idea that she is giving her mentee a caring adult to trust.

“My job is to be a friend — a true friend,” she said.

Pressley said she thinks Volunteers for Youth hands at-risk youth a positive influence and helps them stay on the right track.

“We help show these kids what they are possible of accomplishing.”

Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.