TeamMates program makes its way to Louisburg

TeamMates program director DeMoine Adams speaks to students at Broadmoor Elementary last week about the new TeamMates program in Louisburg.

Aaron Bauer, like many other
people throughout country, spends part of his day cycling through hundreds of
emails.

Then one day, Bauer saw one that
caught his eye – it came from his mentee.

You see, Bauer served as mentor to
this child in rural Nebraska before making the move to Louisburg. It was part
of a program called TeamMates.

Three years after moving to
Louisburg, Bauer’s mentee graduated high school and sent him, what Bauer
called, “the coolest email I have ever received.”

“Aaron, Thank you. Towards the end
of the year, Ms. White showed me a picture of our first match.  It
reminded me of the matches and our time together. You helped a lot during
TeamMates, more than you will ever know, and I’ll be forever grateful.”

Bauer really wasn’t sure what kind of an impact he was having with his
mentee, and if it was even making that much of a difference this child’s life.
One email changed all that.

“Unfortunately, I had to move do to my career,” Bauer said. “My TeamMate
graduated this last spring, three years after I moved.  I remember as
school was ending earlier this spring telling my wife that my TeamMate would
graduate and I asked the rhetorical question, “Do you think I had any
impact?”  A couple of weeks later, after his graduation and during his
summer break, he wrote me a 4-page email because he wanted to update me on his
life and tell me how much our time meant to him.”

The TeamMates program has created several stories like that through
Nebraska and surrounding states and now it is making its way to Kansas – more specifically
– Broadmoor Elementary in Louisburg.

Louisburg is one of 10 school districts in Kansas that have begun using
TeamMates, a mentoring program that pairs a community volunteer with a student.
That mentor would spend time once a week with their mentee to do things the
student enjoys.

“I think it is a great opportunity
for our students,” Louisburg program coordinator Sara McIntire said. “We are a
small-town, and while we are close to the city or to Overland Park, we have a
lot of kids that don’t have the resources to go do some of those things. We
might have kids who are good at sports like basketball, and have the
opportunity to get coached by an adult, but not everyone gets opportunities
like that. I also think our community is special. If a family has a need, and
people became aware of it, we wrap ourselves around that and resources come out
of the woodwork.”

TeamMates Mentoring Program
began in 1991 with the vision of University of Nebraska Head Football Coach Tom
Osborne and his wife Nancy. Coach Osborne felt that the athletes in his program
could make an impact on the middle school students, and twenty-two football
players began meeting with middle school students in the Lincoln Public
Schools.

Of the 22 original mentees, 21
went on to graduate from high school while one left school early to pursue a
successful Motocross career. Eighteen of the original mentees also
obtained some form of post-secondary education.

Since that time, the program
has expanded throughout Nebraska and into surrounding states to help create
those connections to help in a child’s life.

On Nov. 4, TeamMates program
director DeMoine Adams and training and match support manager Allyson Horne
made the trip to Louisburg to speak to the Broadmoor Elementary staff and students
about the program.

“Our hope, as we started as an organization, is to be able to give kids more opportunities to be feel heard and to give mentors more of an opportunity to see what is happening in school districts today and make a difference,” Horne said.  “I don’t think any of us could have ever predicted 10,000 matches, five states and so much ripple effect of the impact.

“My own daughter matched with her
mentor when she was in fifth grade. She is now 23 and recently became a mentor
herself and we have lots of stories like that where we have former mentees who
are now becoming mentors. We have three former mentees who work for the central
office. As a mentor, my hope was always to make a difference in my mentee’s
life, but I would say they probably changed mine more than anything else.”

Later in the evening, the
school provided mentor training for interested participants, and according to
McIntire, had 43 possible mentors go through training. By the following
Thursday, more than 40 students signed up that they were interested in the
program.

 “I always tell mentors that it is ok to say ‘I don’t know, or I’m not sure,’” Horne said. “I think my mentee loves doing crafts with me because she knows that I am terrible at them. She likes to see me struggle I think. When we let our mentee’s teach us, I think some phenomenal things happen with trust-building. It also takes a lot of pressure off of a mentor.

“It has been a unique experience
to be here already. To come in and already see the space created for mentors
and mentees to meet has just been amazing. The school staff has a lot of energy
for it and Sara’s dedication…43 mentors who are going to be trained is not
typical right at the start. For us to come in and feel totally welcomed, but
also this excitement and energy, is unique for us. My role for DeMoine and
myself, we travel program-wide, so we are in South Dakota, Wyoming, we are in
Kansas this month and a lot of communities in Nebraska. When there is already a
culture of belonging and welcoming in a community, we know this is a great fit
and I can already see that.

As good of a first step as
that is, McIntire said they will always be looking for new mentors as they hope
to one day build the program into the middle and high school levels.

“We would love for the community
to embrace this on an even bigger level,” McIntire said. “We have some
businesses already, like First Option Bank and Louisburg Family Dental, who are
having all their employees sign up to be mentors. It is awesome that businesses
are supporting their staff and the giving of their time. We would love to see
that spread. I think the possibilities are endless. I think the legacy of the
program speaks for itself.”

Bauer, who has seen what the
program has done for students first-hand, is taking on a big role in the
Louisburg program as the advisory board president.

Other community members, Becky Bowes (vice-president), T.J. Williams (treasurer), Jennifer Heston (secretary), Connie Barbour, Nick White, Dave Tappan, Dave Alexander, Kristine Lowry, Tim Johnson and Jim Real are all serving on the advisory board, and along with building coordinator Amy Buffington, all hope to see the program take off.

“I am not the type of person that typically gets excited about a whole
lot, but I am super excited about TeamMates coming to Louisburg,” Bauer said. “All
my colleagues that mentored though TeamMates had similar positive, unique
stories.  The special part of being a TeamMates mentor is that you are
matched with a student based on common interests and you remain TeamMates until
the mentee graduates.  TeamMates is also unique in today’s world in that
it is designed to focus on the student’s strengths, and the meetings must be
face to face in a safe environment.  There are no phone calls, texts,
social media, etc. interactions allowed with your mentee. 

“Initially, I
would anticipate the impact of mentoring will not be as evident until trust is
built between the students and the mentors. In a few years, and from then
on, I expect the impact to be very noticeable and it will only continue to
grow. TeamMates has quite a bit of research though Gallup and the
resulting data shows the positive impact on students that have had a
mentor. Often, it reaches far beyond school academics and truly has a
long-lasting and profound impact in the lives of the kids.”

For those that
are interested in becoming a mentor, or want to learn more about the program,
contact McIntire at mcintires@usd416.org
or 913-837-1973.

You can also
visit www.teammates.org to learn more
about the program and view testimonials from those mentors and mentees that
have been impacted.