chain of Lakes Collegiate High SCHOOL TEEN TRENDSETTERS™ celebrate national mentoring month
~Month highlights mentoring to make one child’s life brighter~
January 18, 2011—The Volunteer USA Foundation joins Chain of Lakes Collegiate High School students and other mentors in honor of National Mentoring Month. Held each January, the campaign highlights the crucial role played by mentors in helping young people to achieve their potential.
Chain of Lakes High School students are recruited and trained to serve as reading mentors to 3rd graders at Elbert Elementary School in Winter Haven. The program is part of the Teen Trendsetters™ program which was first launched in Florida in 2002. The program pairs high school with elementary students for one-on-one weekly mentoring sessions.
As a proud program of the Volunteer USA Foundation, “Teen Trendsetters has become an incredibly successful and popular program – nurturing both better readers and a generation of compassionate young leaders and volunteers.” Research has shown that programs that rely on volunteer mentors can play a powerful role in reducing drug abuse and youth violence while greatly enhancing a young person's prospects for leading a healthy and productive life.
There are currently 10 Chain of Lakes students who regularly attend mentoring sessions at Elbert Elementary School. Roxana Aguilar, who was a mentor to Miguel Ayala would recommend the program to anyone that wants to make a positive impact in the life of a child.
She also states, “I enjoyed reading to my mentee and seeing him get excited about the topics we were discussing.”