Mentoring Matters
Teenagers Mentor Too!

Years after graduation, students from local high schools and colleges will remember the many lessons they both taught and learned while being mentors.

Last spring, Juniors and Seniors at Morristown High School's Science Academy gave up their lunch hour for 12 weeks to learn how to become mentors. They will be mentoring the Science Academy's new freshman class this year.  That dedicated group of teens will be mentored by Pfizer employees, and will themselves mentor the incoming freshmen. This is a unique position for a group of special teenagers and an experience that will teach them life-long lessons.

Morristown, Mendham, Bayley Ellard, Lenape Valley, and Mountain Lakes High School, County College of Morris, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and Mt. Olive area school students all have been trained to mentor younger children. The programs range from helping children adjust to a new environment to teaching good study habits to encouraging grade school high achievers by exposing them to high-school-level math and science.

To qualify, interested students must complete United Way's mentor training, which focuses on, in part, roles, rights, and responsibilities of being a mentor.  Once the 12-hour training is completed, the newly trained mentors are matched with a child to mentor.  From 1998 through 2006 we have trained 395 high school and college students to be mentors.

If you would like your school to become involved, contact your guidance counselor or principal and ask them to email JoAnn Tsonton or phone 973.993.1160, x120.

An inspirational story…
Student mentors at Lenape Valley Regional High School graduate as Center's 100th Mentoring Class.  Click here to read story.