Vermont Business Magazine This fall, through the 2018-2019 Vermont Mentoring Grants, MENTOR Vermont (formerly known as Mobius) has awarded 29 grants, totaling $310,300 to support adult-to-youth mentoring programs throughout the state. This funding will support more than 100 new and existing program sites, and nearly 1,800 adult-to-youth mentor pairs in communities across Vermont.
“Mentoring programs throughout the state continue to play a crucial role in helping youth in their community grow and develop into thriving, productive, and engaged adults,” said Chad Butt, executive director of MENTOR Vermont. “MENTOR Vermont and our funding partners are thrilled to be able to continue supporting this important work.”
The Vermont Mentoring Grants are made possible each year through funding support from the A.D. Henderson Foundation, the Vermont Department for Children and Families, and the Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children. The 2018-2019 grants will provide continuing support for established programs that demonstrate they meet best practices and help plan and launch new programs in underserved regions of the state.
All 2018-2019 grantees have committed to being partners in the Vermont K-12 Mentoring Initiative, a multi-year project, spearheaded by MENTOR Vermont, to establish the statewide program infrastructure needed to allow youth the opportunity to be matched with a mentor from elementary school until they successfully enter adulthood.
Additionally, grantees beyond their first two years of operation are required to demonstrate that they are meeting best practices through the Quality Mentoring System (a program assessment system developed by MENTOR Vermont and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership). Grantees will also continue to use common questions from the Vermont Mentoring Surveys to survey their mentors and mentees, and track youth outcome data in the following key areas: resiliency; pro-social skills; future aspirations; connectedness to community; and program satisfaction.
Through the 2018-2019 Vermont Mentoring Grants, MENTOR Vermont has awarded 29 grants to agencies, schools and districts/supervisory unions, and independent non-profits throughout the state, including:
Statewide: The DREAM Program; Everybody Wins! Vermont.
Multiple Counties: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Vermont (Chittenden, Essex, Orleans, and Windham Counties); The Collaborative (Bennington, Windham, and Windsor Counties); Franklin County Caring Communities (Franklin and Grand Isle Counties); New Circle Mentoring Program/Safer Society Foundation (Addison and Rutland Counties); Spectrum Mentoring/Spectrum Youth and Family Services (Chittenden and Grand Isle Counties); and VSA Vermont (Chittenden and Washington Counties).
Addison County: Boys and Girls Club of Greater Vergennes; and Lincoln Mentors, Monkton Mentors, Mount Abraham Mentoring Program, and Starksboro Mentoring Program (all grants managed by the Mt. Abraham Unified School District).
Bennington County: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bennington County/United Counseling Service.
Caledonia County: JUMP Mentoring Program/Northeast Kingdom Youth Services.
Chittenden County: Connecting Youth Mentoring/Champlain Valley School District; Crossroads: Where Cultures Meet/Baba Tree International; Essex FriendCHIPS/Essex CHIPS; King Street Center’s Junior Senior Buddies; Milton Mentors/Milton Community Youth Coalition*; and SB Mentoring/South Burlington School District.
Essex County: See Multiple Counties section above.
Franklin County: See Multiple Counties section above.
Grand Isle County: Grand Isle County Mentoring.
Lamoille County: No agencies applied.
Orange County: The Mentoring Project of the Upper Valley*
Orleans County: See Statewide and Multiple Counties sections above.
Rutland County: The Mentor Connector.
Washington County: Cabot Mentoring; Twinfield Together Mentoring Program*; and Girls/Boyz First Mentoring.
Windham: See Multiple Counties sections above.
Windsor: Empower Up!/Windsor Central Supervisory Union; and Windsor County Partners.
*Program also received a scholarship to attend the 2019 National Mentoring Summit in Washington D.C.
For more information about the Vermont Mentoring Grants and this year’s award recipients, please visit: www.mentorvt.org/vermont-mentoring-grants.
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. National studies by MENTOR and Big Brothers Big Sisters demonstrate that youth with mentors are less likely to engage in risky behavior with drugs and alcohol, and they are more likely to develop positive relationships with peers and adults and pursue college and other post-secondary opportunities. Based on the 2018 Vermont Mentoring Surveys, nearly 72 percent of middle and high school youth supported by mentoring programs in Vermont feel like they matter to people in their community, and more than 88 percent of mentors play a direct role in their mentee’s education.
About MENTOR Vermont: MENTOR Vermont supports 140 adult-to-youth mentoring program sites that serve 2,300 mentor pairs throughout the state. In addition to managing the Vermont Mentoring Grants, MENTOR Vermont offers technical support to program staff, maintains an online program directory and referral system for volunteers, manages a quality-based program management database, raises public awareness of mentoring, works with programs to ensure they are meeting best practices, and leads statewide mentoring initiatives. For more information about mentoring programs and initiatives in Vermont, visit www.mentorvt.org.
Source: Mentor. 12.13.2018