Vermont Business Magazine Mobius is excited to announce that the organization has been awarded a $25,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation. This funding is supporting Mobius’ K-12 Mentoring Initiative, a collaborative effort between Mobius and adult-to-youth mentoring programs to provide mentoring services for Vermont youth.
Jason Klipa, Walmart director of public affairs; Doreen Diper, Walmart marketing manager; Chad Butt, Mobius executive director; Benji Thurber, Mobius communications & technology manager; and Dawn Cunningham, store manager from the Williston Walmart location. Mobius photo.
"The Mobius K-12 Mentoring Initiative is helping kids throughout Vermont believe in themselves, overcome obstacles and realize their potential. The Walmart Foundation is very proud to provide support that will enable this important program to reach more children and enrich more lives," said Walmart Director of Public Affairs Jason Klipa.
The K-12 Mentoring Initiative is spearheaded by Mobius, in partnership with more than 20 mentoring agencies and 100 mentoring program sites that Mobius provides funding for through the Vermont Mentoring Grants. The goal of the Initiative is to ensure that more youth across the state have the opportunity to be matched with a caring, adult mentor from their elementary school years all the way through high school graduation. Mobius is working to achieve this objective by offering support and resources for program staff and mentors and facilitating the transition of mentor matches from one program to another.
“This Walmart Foundation grant will help us make enormous strides in our work to ensure that all youth in Vermont have the opportunity to have a mentor,” said Chad Butt, executive director of Mobius. “This grant is helping us better support the work that our partner programs are doing while allowing us to lay the groundwork for future programs and partnerships in underserved areas of the state.”
About Mentoring: According to the “Mentoring Effect,” a study released in 2014 by MENTOR (The National Mentoring Partnership), one in three youth in Vermont will enter adulthood without having a formal or informal mentoring relationship with a caring adult. The results of national studies by MENTOR and Big Brothers Big Sisters illustrate that a mentor can enhance a young person’s learning skills and help him or her build resiliency and pro-social skills. Youth with mentors are less likely to engage in risky behavior with drugs and alcohol, are more likely to develop positive relationships with peers and adults, and more likely to pursue college and other post-secondary opportunities.
About Mobius: Now in its fourth year as Vermont’s Mentoring Partnership, Mobius supports more than 140 adult-to-youth mentoring program sites that serve 2,300 mentor pairs throughout the state. In addition to coordinating the K-12 Mentoring Initiative, Mobius also provides grant funding to mentoring programs (around $330,000 for the 2015-2016 grant year), offers technical support to program staff, maintains an online program directory and referral system for volunteers, manages a quality-based program management database, and works with programs to lead other statewide mentoring initiatives. For more information about Mobius, and mentoring programs and initiatives in Vermont, visit www.mobiusmentors.org.
About Philanthropy at Walmart: By using our strengths to help others, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation create opportunities for people to live better every day. We have stores in 27 countries, employing more than 2.2 million associates and doing business with thousands of suppliers who, in turn, employ millions of people. We are helping people live better by accelerating upward job mobility and economic development for the retail workforce; addressing hunger and making healthier, more sustainably-grown food a reality; and building strong communities where we operate and inspiring our associates to give back. Whether it is helping to lead the fight against hunger in the United States with $2 billion in cash and in-kind donations or supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment through a series of grants totaling $10 million to the Women in Factories training program in Bangladesh, China, India and Central America, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are not only working to tackle key social issues, we are also collaborating with others to inspire solutions for long-lasting systemic change. To learn more about Walmart’s giving, visit www.foundation.walmart.com.