January is National Mentoring Month and this year, MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, is announcing its Mentoring Amplifies campaign in partnership with American Student Assistance (ASA). The Mentoring Amplifies campaign aims to honor the people who have helped shape the lives of young adults and helped them achieve their goals and ensuring that every student has equal access to opportunities like college, internships, clubs, sports, and more. Mentoring Amplifies and National mentoring Month are about building connections and driving potential, creating tomorrow’s leaders.
“Mentoring Amplifies represents each individual who is committed to supporting and advocating for our nation’s youth,” said David Shapiro, CEO of MENTOR. “MENTOR and ASA are committed to equipping young people with mentoring relationships and growth opportunities everywhere they live, learn, work, and play. Together, we’re providing tools and resources to further engage communities and invoke change. We are building a movement powered by possibilities.”
Research shows that mentors play a powerful role in providing young people with the tools to strive and thrive, to attend and engage in school, and to reduce or avoid risky behavior like drug use. In turn, these young people are:
- 55% more likely to be enrolled in college
- 81% more likely to report participating regularly in sports or extracurricular activities
- 78% more likely to volunteer regularly in their communities.
- More than twice as likely to say they held a leadership position in a club or sports team.
The same research shows that one in three young people in our country will grow up without a mentor. At the same time, research shows that 44% of adults are not yet mentoring but are willing to consider it and mentoring is poised for growth. Young adults aged 18 to 29 are more than twice as likely to cite having had a mentor in their childhood than those over 50-years-old. Almost half of today’s young adults report having a mentor in their youth and those rates appear to have been rising steadily over the past several decades. National Mentoring Month is the time of year where engagement from community members interested in becoming a mentor is highest.
On January 27 to 29, MENTOR is hosting the virtual National Mentoring Summit. With 50 engaging workshops and a plethora of speakers, this year’s summit is poised to be our biggest ever with mentors, mentees, government officials, philanthropists and more sharing stories and lessons on mentoring.
National Mentoring Month is led by MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, the national organization working to expand the quality and quantity of youth mentoring relationships nationwide. Each year since its launch in 2002, National Mentoring Month has enjoyed the strong support of the President and the United States Congress. Other prominent individuals who have participated in the campaign include: Maya Angelou, former President Bill Clinton, Clint Eastwood, Quincy Jones, Cal Ripken Jr., Bill Russell, and Usher.
To learn more about the role mentoring plays in our community and to find volunteer opportunities visit mentoring.org.
ABOUT MENTOR
MENTOR is the unifying champion for quality youth mentoring in the United States. Our mission is to expand the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships nationwide. Potential is equally distributed; opportunity is not. A major driver of healthy development and opportunity is who you know and who’s in your corner. 30 years ago, MENTOR was created to expand that opportunity for young people by building a youth mentoring field and movement. The result: a more than 10-fold increase in young people in structured mentoring relationships. Today, we are the expert voice representing a movement that is diverse and broad and seeps into every aspect of daily life – meeting young people everywhere they are from schools to workplaces and beyond.
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