Our Mentors
We offer mentors the chance to share their knowledge and experience with the kids who need it the most in our community. Many of our mentors feel more fulfilled and happier with their careers, since their lives take on special meaning. Our volunteers report that they also get along better with their own families after mentoring these youth and find themselves becoming more patient, open-minded and better prepared to deal with challenges.
"I happened to run into the mother of Daniel, one of the boys that I'm working with at Camp David Gonzalez. She told me that Daniel talked about me and our class every week with great enthusiasm. She was absolutely thrilled that he was asking for books and wanted to read more." - Glenda Shaw, writer/producer, "Leeza Gibbons " and "Montel"
"I'd meet with Steven and Eddie and it would energize me. I'd feel revitalized. Afterwards, I was really glad that I'd met with them."- Jim Bernstein, sit-com writer "The Family Guy" and "American Dad"
"I have been leading a Journalism Workshop for teenage girls at Ventura Youth Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison, for almost three years now. To say it has changed my life is an understatement. I love the mentoring work I do so much that I want to -- need to -- find a way to do it full-time. It's amazing what you get when you give." Holly Richmond, former writer/editor, "Seventeen," now in Masters program in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University in Santa Barbara