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JANUARY 2005

Matilda Raffa Cuomo

How to Make a Difference in
the New Year

By Matilda Raffa Cuomo

January 2005 is National Mentoring Month. According to the Mentoring Partnership of New York, a coalition of non-profit organizations has developed a major national initiative, in collaboration with the leading broadcast and cable networks to create January National Mentoring Month an annual, concentrated intense national and local media activity combined with extensive community outreach.

The objective is to make the public more aware of the many benefits of mentoring and to invite support. Mentoring USA (MUSA) welcomes the effort as a valuable opportunity to describe our particular model of one to one mentoring that has proven so successful in improving the lives of children at risk and of the volunteers who participate in the mentoring relationship.

The need—and therefore the opportunity is great. Throughout the five boroughs of our city where MUSA operates programs there are long waiting lists of young people who will benefit greatly from a mentoring experience, perhaps as many as 225,000 of them. What we need most now are volunteers willing to serve as mentors. Corporate organizations can be particularly useful by allowing us to recruit from their employees. Serving as a volunteer mentor is not a complicated undertaking. Men and women eager to be of service to a child in need by serving as a useful, loving dedicated adult presence in his or her life need only to commit to spending at least one hour per week for a one year commitment with the child. MUSA provides training, relatively simple instructions and activities in a manual for the mentor and guidance by our professional program managers available at any time.

The principal reward to the mentor is the satisfaction that you have made a real—perhaps even a vital contribution to the life of your mentee. Our files are filled with letters from mentors expressing their pleasure at having undertaken the effort and from former mentees who credit a mentor as a turning point in their life, leading them to an upward path. In fact, I have been able to produce a book “The Person Who Changed My Life” in which seventy-seven prominent celebrities tell us about their mentors and pay tribute to them. Because of the popularity of the book, a second edition was published with added contributions by Tim Russet, Diane Sawyer, Martin Sheen, Senator John McCain, Secretary Colin Powell and Hillary Rodham Clinton who wrote the forward to the book. The National Mentoring Month 2005 campaign will feature these celebrities and many others in video clips and written essays. We thank all of these celebrities for their caring, time and thoughtfulness.

The National Mentoring Month 2005 campaign website, www.WhoMentoredYou.org, provides a variety of ways to be involved in different events; “Thank Your Mentor Day” will be celebrated on Tuesday, January 25. The Mentoring Partnership of New York also has many events scheduled on their website www.mentoring.org/newyork.

MUSA is fortunate to have many compassionate heroes—our volunteers, mentors, school and site coordinators and community friends. We thank the following book publishers who donated books for our mentees at our annual Holiday Party: Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Time Warner Book Group and Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

Our special thanks to Michael Gould, President and CEO of Bloomingdale’s, and all the employees who are mentors for the children at PS 59, MUSA’s largest program. Again, for the 4th consecutive year, MUSA is proud to have Bloomingdale’s devote their Third Avenue corner window to MUSA, displaying a creative mentoring theme. Michael Gould will unveil the outstanding window on Tuesday morning, January 25 and then host a breakfast for the mentors and mentees from PS 59.

This year, we are thrilled to have the participation of the members of the National Basketball Association and the Women’s National Basketball Association and have them join MUSA for National Mentoring Month 2005.

Everyone can make a difference in the life of a child. Be a mentor!

To become a mentor in the Mentoring USA programs throughout New York City, please access www.MentoringUSA.org call our Recruitment Manager Leslie Kelley at 212.400.8286 or e-mail MUSA@MentoringUSA.org.#

Matilda Cuomo is the Founder and Chairperson of Mentoring USA and Janet Polli is the Director of MUSA.

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