Vermont Business Magazine This fall, through the 2015-2016 Vermont Mentoring Grantsinitiative, Mobius awarded 27 grants, totaling $327,715, to supportadult-to-youth mentoring programs throughout the state. This funding willsupport 106 new and existing program sites, and nearly 1,900 adult-to-youthmentor pairs in communities across Vermont.“This year's grants will help local mentoring programs continue to provideinvaluable support to youth in their communities,” said Chad Butt,executive director of Mobius. “Together, we are continuing to make progresstoward Mobius’ goal of being able to provide a mentor to every young personin Vermont who wants one.”
The Vermont Mentoring Grants are made possible through funding support fromthe A.D. Henderson Foundation, The Permanent Fund for Vermont’s Children,and the Vermont Agency of Human Services. This year’s grants are designedto provide continuing support for established programs that demonstrate theymeet best practices, assist the planning of new programs, and supportprograms in their first or second year of implementation.
All 2015-2016 grantees have committed to joining Mobius’ K-12 MentoringInitiative by collaborating with our programs in their region to ensure thatthe youth they serve have the opportunity to continue meeting with theirmentors through high school graduation. Additionally, grantees have completedthe Quality Mentoring System (an assessment system developed by Mobius andMENTOR, The National Mentoring Partnership), and have validated that they aremeeting all local and national program quality standards. Lastly, startingthis grant year, all funded programs will use common questions to surveytheir mentors and mentees and track youth outcome data in the following keyareas: resiliency; pro-social skills; future aspirations; connectedness tocommunity; and attitude toward school.
Through the 2015-2016 Vermont Mentoring Grants initiative, Mobius has awardedgrants to the following 27 agencies, schools and districts/supervisoryunions, and independent non-profits throughout the state:
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Statewide/Multiple Counties: The DREAM Program; Everybody Wins! Vermont; andVSA Vermont.Addison County: Lincoln Mentors; Monkton Mentors; Mount Abraham Mentoring;Starksboro Mentoring (all grants managed by the Addison Northeast SupervisoryUnion).
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Bennington County: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Bennington County/UnitedCounseling Service.
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Caledonia County: JUMP Mentoring/Northeast Kingdom Youth Services.
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Chittenden County: Connecting Youth Mentoring/Chittenden South Supervisory
Union; Essex FriendCHIPS/Essex CHIPS; King Street Center’s Junior Senior
Buddies; Howard Center’s Community Friends; Milton Mentors!/Milton
Community Youth Coalition; SB Mentoring/South Burlington School District;
Spectrum Mentoring/Spectrum Youth and Family Services.
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Franklin County: Watershed Mentoring/Franklin County Caring Communities;Cornerstone Mentoring/Cornerstone Bridges to Life Community Center.
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Grand Isle County: Grand Isle County Mentoring/Grand Isle Community Services.
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Orange County: The Mentoring Project of the Upper Valley.
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Rutland County: The Mentor Connector.
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Washington County: Girls/Boyz First Mentoring/Washington Central Friends ofEducation; and Twinfield Together Mentoring Program/Washington NortheastSupervisory Union.
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Windham: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Windham County/Youth Services of WindhamCounty; The Collaborative.
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Windsor: Mentor and Buddy Program/Ottauquechee Community Partnership; WindsorCounty Partners.
For more information about the Vermont Mentoring Grants and this year’saward recipients, please visit:mobiusmentors.org/vermont-mentoring-grants/2015-2016
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. Based on an abundance of national research,
having 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, and are more
likely to develop positive relationships with peers and adults, and to grow
up to become productive members of society.
About Mobius: Now in its third 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 managing the
Vermont Mentoring Grants, Mobius also 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, and works with programs to lead statewide
mentoring initiatives. For more information about Mobius, and mentoring
programs and initiatives in Vermont, visitwww.mobiusmentors.org.