Cincinnati Youth Collaborative
by Kent Wellington

The CYC has more than 2,000 mentors and tutors in 90% of Cincinnati Public Schools. I'm one of them. With the help of my wife, 10-year old son and 8-year old daughter, we tutor and mentor two 10-years olds, Rodney and Angelo, in OTR and a sophomore in high school (Donald).

Mentoring is not hard. It's not time consuming. And it requires no special skill, educational level or training. It's simple. But to be effective, the brief weekly or bi-weekly contacts must be sustained.

Here's how our family has mentored over the past 8 years. I spend a ½ hour a week tutoring Rodney and Angelo at their respective schools. A typical 30 minute session includes some talk about the importance of education and college expectations as well as the importance of being a good student and a good person today. We hit the 3 R's (reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic) for about 20-25 minutes and usually find time to hit the 3 B's (the Bengals, Buckeyes and Bearcats) for a few minutes as well. Each of our sessions ends the same way and it's the most important part. I spend the last 5 minutes telling them how great they are. And if you tell a kid, including the poorest and most disadvantaged kid, how great they are, week-in and week-out, eventually they start to believe you. And once that occurs, the sky's the limit.

After 4 years, Donald has moved away from downtown and on to a westside high school. So now I keep tabs on him through occasional discussions with a parent and regular e-mails that always communicate the same refrain, "keep working hard in school and good things will happen to you."

My family also gets into the act. We include our mentees in things we're already doing as a family. Trips to the pool, Kings Island, GameWorks or the Observatory. Art classes, the library, meals, birthday parties, summer day camps, etc.

Both Rodney and Angelo don't have organized sports in their schools until 7th grade, so they enjoy the opportunity to play basketball at our Church and on my son's Hyde Park-area school team. I wish the other kids on our team were so appreciative.

My 8-year old daughter is always finding interesting books or educational puzzles and worksheets for Rodney and Angelo. And when they come to visit our home, my wife feeds them, hugs them incessantly, spoils them and, in short, shows them how special they are.

In the end, I don't know if we'll get them all to college like one of our first mentees (who is now a college graduate and mentor to 3 disadvantaged kids himself). But I do know for sure that all of us - Rodney, Angelo, Donald and my family included- have all benefited by finding a little time to combine our very different lives with each others'.

Today, over 50% of the students in our City's public schools are at risk for not graduating from high school and continuing in a frustrating cycle of poverty and limited opportunities. You can change this.

If interested in learning more about mentoring and tutoring opportunities through the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative please contact me (Kent Wellington, 513-484-2812, welk@graydon.com or the CYC at 513-475-4165, info@cycyouth.org or online at www.cycyouth.org .