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FEBRUARY 2005

Matilda Raffa Cuomo

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.#

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