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Mentors' actions speak loudly for TALKS program mentees
Mentors apparently come in all shapes and sizes, ages and backgrounds. And like finding gold, a good one is a keepsake for a lifetime.
That was readily apparent on Tuesday evening as a celebration of the Transferring a Little Knowledge Systemically (TALKS) mentoring program unfolded at the Inn at DePauw.
The local TALKS undertaking is part of the ongoing Bridges Out of Poverty effort coordinated under the Transformers Program umbrella that is organized through Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church in Greencastle. It pairs Greencastle Middle School mentees with local mentors, mainly DePauw University students presently.
Tuesday evening the mighty mentors of the TALKS effort included tiny Mi Nguyen, a DePauw student who could barely be seen from behind the podium yet loomed so large in the eyes of GMS pupils she and other DPU students mentor.
Lessons correspond to topics of youth interest, Nguyen said, using "trash talking" and bullying as examples.
The program began in Champaign, Ill., in 1995 as a way to facilitate interaction between adults and young people who were considered at-risk socially or scholastically.
Mentor Taylor Jones said her fellow DePauw students can be effective mentors for local middle schoolers because their relationship gives them "somebody close to their age to talk to when you don't have a lot of friends or think your friends are judging you."
After all, she said, "not everybody wants to talk to their mother about everything."
Keynote speaker Timothy Bookwalter, meanwhile, said in his formative years, it was his grandmother to whom he talked and confided.
"She was that person who made the difference in my life," the Putnam County prosecutor offered. "She made that difference to me."
Bookwalter told the audience he was essentially an awkward kid, "just OK" at sports, bringing home less-than-stellar grades on his report card.
"I always wore husky pants," the now tall and lean Bookwalter said. "I was a husky kid."
He said he knocked out his two front teeth in the third grade but didn't get them fixed until he was in high school.
Yet while he didn't seem to have a whole lot going for him and a dubious future loomed, his grandmother figured out how to motivate him. She took him along with her to work at the Vanderburgh County Courthouse in Evansville, where she served as probation officer and later mental health officer.
Bookwalter watched the daily drama unfold in the courtroom and became absorbed in how "the performers" -- the attorneys -- worked and interacted.
"One thing I was always good at," he said, "was thinking on my feet."
His interest piqued, Bookwalter still needed his grandmother to assure him he would need much better grades to even get into law school, which motivated him to excel enough to go to Butler University and then on to Chicago-Kent College of Law.
"A mentor is an important part of your life," he said, "maybe the person who opens that door for you. Mentees need to know that."
After all, it was a mentor that spurred Abraham Lincoln to become a lawyer. And it was a mentor that guided George Washington into surveying.
"He didn't go to school," Bookwalter said of the Father of Our Country, "he had a mentor."
He had one final message for the mentees in the audience.
"What I want the mentees to do," Bookwalter concluded, "is to dream big."
Don Hatfield dreamed big when he helped initiate the program in Champaign, Ill., in 1995. A few years ago he thought he was going to retire to the Parke County area, visit Turkey Run State Park and enjoy the ambiance that is Rockville.
Now he's in his fifth year with the Rockville TALKS effort, which starts in third grade with mostly at-risk children and follows them along through high school.
"There are three things I look for (in a mentor)," Hatfield said. "You've got to love kids, read at least at a fifth-grade level and have a great deal of patience."
The Rockville program now has 56 mentors and more than 155 young people to mentor.
He said people "have a hard time believing" that in 30 minutes a week, such major changes can eventually occur in a child's demeanor and desire. But the program is the real McCoy, Hatfield assured.
"Small, positive impact," he said of the process.
TALKS has been responsible for an increase in school attendance and an upswing in grades by those formerly at-risk students in Rockville, he said.
The community as a whole has even benefited, Hatfield said, noting the downturn in juvenile problems since the TALKS effort began.
"That says a great deal for the program," he said.
Hatfield asked school officials for the three toughest cases in the school when he began the program And the three boys he helped turn around were on hand Tuesday evening, speaking positively about the program and its results.
"I know it's changing dozens of lives in Rockville," Hatfield added. "As the old saying goes, 'You've got to work the program.'"
Meanwhile, local TALKS program coordinator Dr. John Savage pointed out that the mentoring program helps instill skills and values in young people that are not necessarily taught in schools.
Skills such as how to work with people and how to maintain a positive outlook, essentially "things that someone who is successful does very well" are encouraged, Savage said.
The next step in the TALKS effort, he suggested, is expanding the program to include mentees at Greencastle High School.
"I believe in the TALKS program." Savage said in closing the celebration banquet. "I think we've seen its success here tonight."