Bloomingdale’s
Dedicates Window
to National
Mentoring Month
By Michelle DeSarbo
Teachers, mentors,
and eager third graders crowded the sidewalk on 59th Street
and Lexington Avenue recently for the unveiling of a new
storefront window in honor of National Mentoring Month at
Bloomingdale’s Department Store. The day’s events
were the culmination of a program organized by Matilda Raffa
Cuomo with Mentoring USA. A total of 90 Bloomingdale’s
employees paired up with children from PS 59 (the Beekman Hill
School in Manhattan) as part of National Mentoring Month, meeting
every week to tackle homework, chat, and get to know each other.
“They love children, and they’re here to help
them,” said Cuomo of the mentors with Bloomingdale’s
CEO Michael Gould, New York Liberty basketball star Teresa
Weatherspoon, and former Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton
at her side.
The crowd was abuzz with enthusiasm when Gould removed the
tapestry. With “Building
Bridges to Success with Mentoring” as its theme, the
display depicted child-sized mannequins in bright clothing
positioned on multi-colored stairs bearing words like “love,” “compassion,” and “friendship” against
the backdrop of vibrant student paintings of the children and
their mentors together. With their friends’ assistance,
the children crowded around the window to look for their artwork.
The crowd filed into
Bloomingdale’s Showtime Café for
breakfast. The
students, fresh from an appearance on The Early Show, snacked
on cereal, doughnuts, bagels, and orange juice while listening
to The Little Mermaid. “They really encourage parents to help out,” said
Minnie Aviles, a parent who accompanied the children to the
event, above the din.
Indeed, Cuomo thanked
parents and teachers for their efforts and acknowledged their
role in shaping children’s lives. “Children listen to you,” she
said. “They imitate you and they imitate their teachers
as well. I know that a lot of teachers cannot cope with the
number of children they have in their classrooms. And that’s
where mentors come in. It’s about how the mentors have
given young people the opportunity to grow.”
After extending thanks to Adele Schroeder (principal of PS
59) for her outstanding leadership, Cuomo expressed her appreciation
for Gould. “Michael
Gould is incredible. Bloomingdale’s
is the only department store in the country to participate
in a program like this one. It’s fantastic. It’s
exactly what we are looking for,” she said.
Mentoring USA also
has help from its parent mentoring organization, The Mentoring
Partnership of New York (TMPNY). TMPNY provides assistance
and training for mentoring programs in New York City, often
working with corporations and schools in order to further
the mentoring movement in the city. “Our main
focus is to close New York City’s mentoring gap,” said
Zachary T. Boisi, Director of TMPNY. “There are roughly
50,000 children being mentored now, but 225,000 more are still
on waiting lists.” Mentoring USA is one of the more than
150 community-based, corporate, and faith-based mentoring programs
working to under TMPNY to close that gap. For more information
on how to become a mentor, visit www.mentoring.org/newyork.#
