January is National Mentoring Month! 
This campaign celebrates the positive effect mentoring has on young lives and raises awareness on the need for mentors and how, together, we can increase mentorships to help ensure positive outcomes for our youth. All month we will be celebrating our own amazing mentors and the positive impact they have on our students.
A mentor is someone special. They’re not just a friend or a tutor. Mentoring is a relationship: a friendship with structure and accountability. CISNT offers two great mentoring opportunities. CISNT Individual Mentors walk alongside a student throughout their school year through weekly one-on-one meetings. CISNT Leadership Group Mentors foster interpersonal and other life skills in students through monthly group luncheons and monthly individual meetings with their matched student or students.
Mentorship can improve students’ self-esteem, academic performance, school engagement, and overall behavior. Youth who have a mentor are:
- 55% more likely to go to college
- 78% more likely to regularly volunteer
- 130% more likely to pursue leadership opportunities
- 90% more likely to become mentors themselves.
Each child we work with would benefit from having a positive adult role model. In fact, one of our 5 core tenets is that each child needs and deserves to have a one-to-one relationship with a caring adult.
Think back to who meant the most to you when you were a child. Perhaps it was a coach, a teacher, a youth minister, or some other supportive adult. When we remember our mentors, the memories of time spent with them are almost in slow motion – not because they took forever, but because they meant so much to us then and now.
This year we hope you can join us as a mentor and share this opportunity and your experience with a friend. As we know, life goes by fast, but relationships are timeless. To apply to volunteer as a mentor and learn more, visit: https://cisnt.org/volunteer/.
