Recently joined Tutor Mentor Connection

[Ed Washington]

I met with Dan a few days ago and joined Tutor Mentor Connection. I am excited about the resources this program offers and hope to help shine some light on its benefits. As a mentor in the past, I have seen first hand the results of mentoring students, which is why I want to get involved in spreading this message.I graduated from DePaul University 3 years ago and work in Finance. I’ve done some volunteer work with a few local soup kitchens and tutoring programs. As I learn more about the program I hope to create some new ways to improve the many benefits that are already in place.

[Daniel Bassill]

Welcome Ed and thanks for posting. The goal of the Tutor/Mentor Connection is that lots of people are talking to people they know every day, pointing to the information on our sites, and talking about how people can help one or more tutor/mentor programs as volunteers, donors, network builders, tech support, etc. If enough people do this we can become our own "media network" with thousands, and even millions, of people coming through our blogs and maps, to the neighborhoods of Chicago and other cities where they are needed every day.

As you write your articles, you can copy and paste graphics from our other blogs, and web sites, to illustrate the messages you are giving. This one shows how we talk about specific things at different times each year. So in May we're talking about how school is ending, how the conference will celebrate what we all did to connect with kids, and how we need to borrow ideas from each other so that we can do summer planning that leads to better programs as we start recruiting kids and volunteers in August for the 2010-11 school year.

In August we'll be writing about being a volunteer, and throughout the year we'll be pointing to info volunteers and students can use to create a larger impact in every life. In December we'll write about how these program need money, with the goal that year end donors read and respond with large and small gifts.

By a year from now we'll be starting the cycle all over again, but with more people involved because of what you and others have done.