MENTOR Community Celebrates MENTOR Con 2022
June 21, 2022
MENTOR Con is back!
After two years of gathering virtually, the MENTOR community of staff from the National office and Affiliates across the country came together at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, for two full days of learning and fellowship.
MENTOR Con kicked off on the evening of Monday, June 13, with a meeting of MENTOR’s National Board and an evening welcome reception. Reception attendees mingled and heard brief remarks from David Shapiro, CEO of MENTOR National, Nancy Altobello, Chair of MENTOR National’s Board, Jo-Ann Schofield, CEO and President of MENTOR Rhode Island, and Katie Albert, who spoke on behalf of Representative Jim Langevin (D-RI).
On Tuesday, June 14, MENTOR Con was officially in full swing. Attendees spent the morning building community and discussing the results of their CliftonStrengths StrengthsFinder, an assessment that helps individuals find their own strengths and learn to work with colleagues who excel in other areas.
Participants shared their visions for racial equity with the larger group.
A highlight of the day came in the afternoon when MENTOR’s Racial Equity Plan was shared. Attendees had the chance to learn about the plan and to discuss their own racial equity goals. One participant shared, “Racial equity is personal for me. Of course, I think about it on an organizational level, but when it comes down to it, I’m thinking about my own children and how I can make the world a better and safer place for them.” At the end of the afternoon, each attendee answered the prompt, “I commit to…” and committed to a specific personal action for racial equity.
Day three of MENTOR Con provided the opportunity for attendees to think about the impact of their own work and how they could work together and learn from others across the network. During the morning session on Collective Strategy and Impact, attendees had the chance to hear from Tim Wills, MENTOR’s new Chief Impact Officer. He told staff, “Your success is all of our success,” and reminded the room, “Young people’s voices matter tremendously. As we create products, events, and opportunities, we have to engage the young people we are trying to serve. It is incumbent on us to make sure their voice is in everything we do.”
Executive Director of MENTOR Maryland | DC Sadiq Ali led a session on data and storytelling, asking participants, “How do we leverage our strengths to drive the impact we’d like to see?” He reminded the group, “Data plus our soul, our narrative, become our stories. The souls of our respective communities. Stories move culture.”
Next, attendees met in small groups with the other staff from their Affiliate or department to discuss areas of strength and pride. They listed those strengths on large pieces of paper, and a gallery walk provided the chance for participants to connect and identify areas to learn from each other in the future.
At the activity’s closing, MENTOR CEO David Shapiro gave remarks, reminding the room of how much impact their work has. He told the group, “In this time when we are frustrated by so much, celebration of the progress we’ve made is not an affront to the fact we haven’t arrived where we’d like to be. It’s not naïve to be proud of the incremental victories or of your role in making things better.”
In the afternoon, MENTOR staff-led breakout sessions on a variety of topics:
- Program Operations
- Youth Voice and Engagement
- Telling The Mentoring Story Year-Round
- Fundraising Events
- Technology
- Advocacy Strategies, Tools, and Resources
- Systems Innovations
- Becoming a Better Mentor
- How to Engage Local Media
- Board Engagement in Fundraising
These sessions provided the opportunity for attendees to focus on more specific areas of their work and learn in smaller groups.
Finally, the closing session allowed the entire group to come back together and remind each other of how important MENTOR’s work is. MENTOR Rhode Island Program Coordinators L.A. Busteed and Nichole Lewis shared powerful personal stories of mentoring youth of different ages. Busteed, who mentors a seven-year-old boy named Joshua, told the room, “Program coordinators are your direct line to the community!” and noted that program coordinators often have deep ties to the communities in which they work.
Lewis then reminded attendees that while middle school students are at an age where they push away well-meaning adults, they need those adults more than ever. She recalled the story of one young woman who had begun ignoring her longtime mentor as soon as she reached middle school – until there was a sudden death in her family. “That young woman,” Lewis recalled, “didn’t even take bereavement days because she just wanted to go to school and ask for her mentor.” A few years later, the young woman’s mentor handed her her diploma at her high school graduation.
Christopher Margadonna, Director of Training & Engagement at MENTOR Rhode Island, shared his own personal story of mentoring a young person whose family shunned him as soon as he came out as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. As a member of the community himself, Margadonna was proud to be able to serve as a resource, guide, and shoulder to cry on for his mentee. He recalled that he had been the only person who went to watch his mentee graduate high school, and said, “It’s about showing up when they need you.”
Finally, MENTOR Rhode Island intern and MENTOR National Ambassador Gabriel Cappella joined the group virtually all the way from Puerto Rico to share his own experiences. He told the room, “I know the work MENTOR does is important, because I’ve lived it. MENTOR has set me up for success.” It was a fitting closing to an edifying, inspirational, and productive couple of days. Attendees left feeling rejuvenated and ready to return to their work with new knowledge, connections, and skills.
We’ll see you next year in Des Moines, Iowa, for MENTOR Con 2023!