Mentorship means showing up

By Ben Cason

April is the National Month of the Young Child, and since 2012, United Way of Pueblo County has made an impact with their middle school mentoring program. The program focuses on engaging middle school students by connecting them with an in-person mentor.

The vision of the program is for all Pueblo middle school students to have access to nurturing mentors who help them develop into confident, responsible and positive members of the community. Mentors are connected with students at the beginning of the fall semester and meet for one hour per week during the year. Ideally, mentors would stay with the students through all three years of their middle school careers.

Melody Schuette, the youth success coordinator at United Way, said, “Our big thing with mentors is that you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be there. People get in their head and think they can’t positively impact youth and that’s not the case. I think every adult has something they can bring

United Way’s program lifts up Pueblo middle school students

to the table to impact our youth in Pueblo.”

“Our focus for our program is ‘bubble kids,’ the kids right in the middle,” Schuette said. “The high-achieving honor-roll kids seem to have those systems already in place. Also, the kids with behavioral challenges have support systems built in. We target those kids because they may be one direction from being that behavioral child or one direction from being the honor roll child.”

Mentees are enrolled in participating middle schools in Pueblo school districts 60 and 70. They are referred to the program by school staff who collaborate with United Way to make compatible mentor and mentee matches.

“It’s a chance to have another positive adult in their life,” Schuette said. “In my opinion, you cannot have too many positive people surrounding you. At that age, you may not want to talk to your parents about things, having another adult you can trust and talk to can be a huge thing.”

A success story from United Way is a mentor whose goal has become beating his mentee at Uno. Schuette said, “It’s a story of a mentor not trying to change their mentee, but just being there has made an impact.”

Sarah Mize, a volunteer mentor with the program, said, “I love Pueblo, my home, and giving back to my community has become more and more important to me as the years have gone by. I am hopeful that through mentoring, I can improve my mentee’s life experience in even the smallest of ways, and it’s also a lot of fun to color and chat with Izzy every week.”

“Mentoring impacts everyone,” Schuette said. “Almost everyone I talk to has a mentor in their life they can point to. Part of our goal of our mentoring program is to provide opportunities to build relationships with nurturing adults who empower and encourage our middle schoolers. The benefit of having someone to walk alongside you and positively impact your life makes a huge difference.”

United Way is a part of the Pueblo Mentoring Collaborative and works with over 60 nonprofit organizations through grants and collaborations in Pueblo. The Pueblo Mentoring Collaborative is a group of organizations who work together in order to impact the city of Pueblo.

“We’re there to support each other,” Schuette said. “One of the great things is that you can mention an event going on, and you have volunteers for that event, or a chance for someone’s program to go to that event and share what they’re doing. It’s a great opportunity to get a foot in the door with that collaboration piece.”

United Way is accepting applications for mentors stepping in for the 2023-24 school year. You can find the application at pueblounitedway.org/mentor.