Mentoring makes a difference. Think back to someone older whose kindness and example changed you for the better. Now you can be the one offering a life-changing experience just by sharing time and attention with someone who needs it. Kevin Greene of Faces International in Allentown knows firsthand the power of a caring ear. He credits mentoring for his own success and shares how it can profoundly impact the next generation.
Big Harv
Greene grew up in a single parent household, and the man who had the greatest influence on him was a friend's father. “I was going through a lot mentally and I quit football one day,” he says. “Big Harv” noticed something was wrong, picked Greene up and went on a four-hour bike ride with him.
“He never brought up football,” Greene says. “He wanted to hear what I was going through and hear my voice.”
Thanks to just a few hours of organic mentoring, Greene started to focus more on what he wanted to be, believe that he could get there and trust that he could stop pushing people away. What he'd learned was trust that others cared about him and cared about his success.
Where Support Is in Short Supply
Any young person you know can benefit from another good role model, but some kids are especially struggling with a lack. Greene is on the board of directors at Valley Youth House, an organization that provides services and support to our at-risk youth. As such, he's familiar with an easily overlooked issue. “We have a large child homelessness problem in the Valley,” he says. “It's not obvious because many of the kids are still going to school every day.”
One factor driving kids onto the street is hostility towards LGBTQ youth. Some parents would rather their LGBTQ children be homeless than under their roof. Suffering the unnatural hardship of excommunication from one's family is a devastating setback. They're the ones who are supposed to care most.
Connecting with Valley Youth House is one way to get set up with a young person seeking growth and inspiration through a mentor's help. You don't have to have all the answers to be a mentor. Just by having someone in their corner, young people with mentors show greater confidence and less anxiety, and they're more likely to go to college. Mentoring means a brighter future.
The Makings of a Mentor
So, what makes a good mentor? Patience and consistency are key. Greene describes it as imparting the intangibles. “It's intangible qualities that make the difference between someone being great or not,” he says. “They determine whether someone's able to build relationships, have a positive outlook and become a problem solver.”
Let trust develop in its own time. Encourage your mentee to vent but also to build confidence in their own decision-making and problem-solving skills. Have fun together doing something they enjoy. Don't get drawn into parental or family mediation—your place is supporting their exercise of life skills. Be dependable. The most important lesson you may impart is faith in humanity, and that can be undone quickly if you drop the ball.
Show and Tell
A mentoring relationship is like learning on the job in a hands-on apprenticeship. “Kids who have been through so much are guarded because, for them, the world is not a nice place. When you're living with abundance, you're open to new things. Living in crisis mode, it's all about survival,” he says.
It won't be the first or last time a young person has heard motivational lines or lectures. The difference is having consistent exposure to something different than the world they've experienced all their lives. “Big Harv was a white Irish cop,” Greene says. By his actions, “He changed the stereotypes we were burdened with. We can't expect kids to change when they only know one world.”
Give and Take
A mentee isn't the only one learning something from the relationship. “It's going to make an impact on you,” Greene says. Young people are on the cultural front lines and you have a chance to know what they know about our changing world. It's not just about keeping up with the latest memes, it helps develop understanding and empathy for other backgrounds and experiences.
“Intergenerational communication is so important,” Greene insists. He sees millennials bridging the gap between a pre- and post-internet world, able to link those who find the flood of new voices overwhelming with those who have never known a planet without instant connection and expression. By sharing our lives with each other, we widen and deepen our view of the full picture. As Greene says, “I don't know how we move forward without that.”
Kevin Greene
Board of Directors
Valley Youth House | valleyyouthhouse.org
