Olumide Aje, the CISNT Site Coordinator at Ryan HS, first matched Paul with a 6th grade student at Calhoun Middle School. Today Paul continues to mentor his student who is now in 10th grade at Ryan High School.
Mr. Aje originally assessed that the student would benefit from having a mentor because of his behavior and lack of trusting relationships with adults at school. After a year of working with that student his classroom conduct changed completely and the student was no longer a frequent visitor to ISS and wasn’t getting into fights anymore. Mr. Aje shares, “I attribute a lot of that to the work that Paul was doing with him.” Now the student has been needing more support in academics and Paul now works with him exclusively on how to create good study habits, becoming more organized and turning in daily assignments.
Although Paul has worked with his student since his student was in 6th grade, the student transferred schools and the pair lost touch. However, once Mr. Aje started to work at Ryan HS and saw the same student, he immediately reached out to Paul and Paul didn’t even need to think about it before agreeing to resume his mentorship with his mentee. He has been extremely flexible and patient working with a student that can lack some motivation towards school. Mr. Aje shares, “Paul is one of those mentors that you just know would do anything within their scope to provide the support their mentee needs to ensure their success.”
Mr. Aje says, “I believe that Paul Voorheis should be awarded Volunteer of the Year because he would do anything to see his student succeed. He has made such a huge impact on this young man’s life by just showing up every week and showing him that he cared even when the student didn’t always reciprocate the same energy. Paul helped his mentee overcome his substantial behavior/conduct issues in middle school and is now putting forth that same attention towards his mentee’s academics and his grades have started to decline. His mentee has told me on numerous occasions how thankful he is that there is someone in his life that consistently shows up and backs up their words and promises with action. Having someone like that is rare for this student and having a volunteer as dedicated as Paul is also very rare which is why I think he should be Volunteer of the Year.”
