Ep 146 | Is mentorship the best legacy?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And many mentors have said to me, I truly think I get more out of being a mentor than I give to the student. Many of them say it's a highlight of their week to leave their busy job or to leave the work at home and to go spend time with a young person. And many have said it keeps me young.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to the Voices United in Education podcast. Each week we showcase the teachers, administrators, and community members who go the extra mile to contribute to the success of every student in Escambi County. For many, and some might say most, living in the land of opportunity is not enough. But when paired with belief, opportunity can grow wings. And such has been the case for the hundreds of students impacted by the work of my next guest. She is celebrating her final chapter of a 25-year career in student mentorship. She was the county mentor coordinator for Take Stock in Children, helping 159 students not just attend, but graduate from college through the support of mentors and scholarships. Today she's going to share her journey in education and her take on mentorship. Opportunity creator, future builder, mentorship influencer, Miss Sally Lee. Thank you, Meredith, for having me. How do you feel about being an influencer? Nice. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Good way to be remembered.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Well, both of your parents were in education in, was it Indiana? Indiana. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

What were their roles? My mother was a special education teacher, and my dad was a college professor and a coach.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Oh wow. And I think it goes without saying that that probably had an influence on your decision to kind of take a similar path.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

It did for sure. And there was just never any question that I was going to go to college. I think that might be why I've enjoyed take stocks so much, because there's children that isn't part of their upbringing. But for me, I I just always knew I would go to college and I always wanted to be a teacher.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Why do you think that going to college is important? I think, you know, on the surface, we think, well, it helps you get a better job. And but I mean, do you see something else in it being someone who went to college themselves and someone who has helped all these kids go?

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Well, definitely. You meet so many people from so many different walks of lives. So it expands your horizon and gives you opportunities you would never have had otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

You were a stay-at-home mom for a while as well, I remember. So as a parent, what did it mean to you to have adults in the lives of your kids?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

It was wonderful for me to be able to spend the first few years of my children's lives at home providing more time. But as I then went back to work and they got involved in their own activities in school, they had people besides me to influence them. And that's always helpful. How was it helpful for you? As a parent?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, because you know, I think maybe parents think, I don't know, you tell me. I I feel like parents nowadays think that they have to be it all and do it all on their own. And they're overwhelmed and they're tired and they're overworked, and they may not realize that mentorship is a is also for them. Like it's for their kid, but it has benefits. So I'm curious if you felt that as a parent of littles.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I think so. And I remember early on in my marriage, we lived next door to a family. The the boy was struggling with math, and his dad was an accountant, and his dad would get so frustrated that the kid wouldn't respond to him. And he would come over to my house and sit in my kitchen and let me help him with math. And he would respond beautifully. But I think that's kind of a different thing. A parent is a parent, usually. And then a different person, a mentor, is somebody else who cares just because they care, not because they're a parent, but because they see something in that child too. So it's kind of gives the best of both worlds. It does.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Did you ever have trouble communicating that to parents in your time at Take Stock or the other mentorship program that you're in?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Well, no, we have always tried. We actually have a sheet that we give to the parents that says, we're not trying to replace you as a parent, but we want to work with you to help your child be the best that they can be.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

And there are other people who care and want to be involved.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Before Take Stock in Children, you worked at another mentorship program. What inspired you to just even be in this space of mentorship as opposed to being a teacher in the way that your parents were?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, I did start as a teacher in California and I taught high school business for nine years. And then we moved here to Pensacola in 1983. My husband was in the military, so we moved here, and that's when I stayed home at first with my children. But I missed being around kids and having something meaningful to do. So the the way I got back into it, I had been very active in PTA as a mom, as a parent. And then I met Peggy Pilcher. And Peggy Pilcher at the time was the community involvement coordinator for the school district. And she had heard about a mentor program in other parts of Florida. And she asked me if I would be interested in applying with her for this grant to start that program here in Escambia County. So I was looking for something else to do, and that sounded good. So I did become the youth motivator coordinator. It was a part-time position, but it allowed me to meet so many wonderful people who wanted to make a difference somewhere. It was a fairly easy way, maybe an hour a week, to get involved in the life of a child and to give back.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Do you remember the first child that you were able to connect with through that program? I actually do. It doesn't surprise me. I would have been shocked if you said no.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, and a number through that. And I'll tell you a story about one of the mentors early on in that program. Most of the students in the youth motivator program were in elementary school, some middle school, but they all were struggling in school and they all needed somebody else to help them with reading or with their math, their times tables, or spelling. And so I got to meet a lot of, like I said, people who wanted to help give that kind of help. So this man was a mentor to a sixth grade boy. And he had shared with me that he was really having trouble making a connection. And he really didn't know if he was making a difference and if that boy even wanted him to keep coming. But he said, one day it was time to go see the boy, and it was pouring down rain. And he told me I almost didn't go, but I thought, no, I made a commitment. I'm gonna go. And so he did go and he got all wet, getting from the car to the school. And he said, when the boy came and saw him, he said, I can't believe you came. I was sure you wouldn't. And he said, You are all wet. You came out in the rain to see me. I can't believe you care enough to do that. That's the kind of impact a mentor can make in the life of a child. I always told mentors, it's not what you know, but what you can show. And a student doesn't care what you know until they know that you care. And so for that student, all of a sudden, here was another person who came out in the pouring rain just to spend time with him. And that makes a profound difference. And of course, that affected the mentor as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Of course it did. Yeah. A lot of children say that they wouldn't have had the opportunities, wouldn't have been able to go to university had it not been for take stock or any other mentorship relationship in their life. And it's usually very pivotal. What do you think, though, the the miss out potential is for the mentors? Like what do the mentors get out of these relationships that they would potentially not receive were it not for them showing up in the rain?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

That's right. And many mentors have said to me, I truly think I get more out of being a mentor than I give to the student. Many of them say it's a highlight of their weak to leave their busy job or to leave the work at home and to go spend time with a young person. And many have said it keeps me young. It gives me insight into this generation and it gives me joy to be able to connect and make a difference. So it is a meaningful thing to be involved with without being too involved. A lot of mentors didn't want to have to do too much, but going to school one hour a week to work with a student, that's easily doable.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Are there other things that you hear people who are prospective mentors kind of push back on?

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Some are nervous that they don't remember their algebra or their chemistry. So I tell them that's not what we're looking for in a mentor. We can get tutoring through the school district. And again, that's why this is such a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. And I I I wrote down your theme, united in education for the success of every child. That's definitely what this does. It helps the schools can help with the education part, but the mentor can help with the personal part more, maybe have that individual time together.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah. I've heard adults say, I can't mentor a child because who am I? What do I know? And it's such an interesting response to me as someone who has been the beneficiary of mentorship. I never, as a child, as a teenager, which is a judgmental child, right? I never looked at the couple of mentors that I had and go, you know what? I don't think she knows enough. I just thought, oh wow, she really cares about me. That's the deal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah. Really caring. And it's a small commitment of time, but a huge payoff. So many students just want to be heard. They just want somebody who has time and will take time to share with them some things. And it doesn't have to be profound, but just time together.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Do you think it's hard for people to grasp the value of mentorship when these metrics are softer? Do you know what I mean? Because you're using words like profound and you know, like I and I I speak that language, I totally understand, but I'm putting myself in the the shoes of somebody that's more like, I don't know, traditionally data driven because feeling connected is important, right? We see what the loneliness epidemic has done, right? So we were feeling that. And yet we still struggle with that push and pull of, well, what is the data on this?

SPEAKER_00 11:20

It's really hard because it you how do you come up with data on that? If a student starts doing better in school, was it because of the teachers that were helping? Was it because mom was spending more time at home? Was it because they were doing more homework? Or was it because of that mentor who came every week and spent time? And I think again, it's a combined effort. It's a lot of those things together. But having that outside person, it's hard to quantify the difference. But when you hear a teacher say, Oh, he's so excited now about doing his reading, or a parent who says, My student is taking a lot more interest now. I have to believe it's that mentor that had something to do with it, even though it's really hard to single out just what part.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Well, I mean, that's that's human life, though, right? You know, we're not bento boxes or waffles or spaghetti. We're all in this together. That's good. Another pushback that I get sometimes from other adults with children when I talk about the impact of mentorship is that they don't want people to perceive something's wrong with their kid. Like receiving a mentor is I don't know what the equivalent would be. Like, I think you do though. I think you know what I'm talking about. I do. Okay. Can you speak to that?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

We always share with parents the role of a mentor. And it's not to replace them, it's not to be an ATM machine to buy things for their kid, it's not being a social worker trying to fix anything. It's, as I said earlier, another adult who cares about your child and wants to do what they can to help them do better. And it's a it's a team, again, united.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Do you have moments in your 25 years of being a mentor matchmaker and a mentor yourself that were pivotal change moments for you?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Just a lot of situations where I found there were other forces at work as that match was made. I'm thinking of a girl who both of her parents were killed and she was being raised by her grandmother. And the mentor that we put with her, turns out she was also raised by her grandmother. And so she not only could empathize with where that student was, but she was kind of helping fulfill a little bit of a mothership role as well. That was really good. Another situation like that, we had a boy who's Chinese and put him with a mentor, and that mentor happened to work at the hall center. He'll know who he is. And he walking down the hall one day, he stopped me and he said, How did you know I spoke Chinese? No. Yes, and that's what I said, what he said, you didn't know. And I said, No, I didn't know. He had been in the military and did language training, and he knew the language that this child spoke. What? Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, amazing. Do you have any of these previous of these students come back and report back on how they're doing with their lives or how the role of mentorship set them on a positive trajectory?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

All the time. And we have a lot, especially well, in the take stock program, students are mentored many times by the same mentor all the way through. And even once they graduate and go to college, the mentor and the student stay in contact. So I know of mentors who have gone to their students' wedding, they've seen their babies, and they still stay in touch. So it's very, very, very special. Don't you kind of think this is how communities are supposed to work? Oh, yes. Yeah. And it's beautiful when you see that it's working well.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Over 25 years, our world has changed a lot. Yes. How have you seen young people change?

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I think deep inside they're still the same. Yeah. But oh my goodness, with all the pressures that they face now with social media, all the different things that are going on in their world. And as we went through that COVID time, that we saw big changes then. But inside, they're still kids, they still want to be cared about and they still want to interact with somebody who cares about them. Yeah, that's kind of the core of it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

What is the average age of the mentors that are in this program? Because when I think about like, like I would have a hard time not having my analog experience, you know, applying it to these problems that I didn't have growing up. But you have mentors that are younger too, correct?

SPEAKER_00 16:06

We do. We have some that are just barely out of college themselves. In fact, one of our take stock students has graduated and is now at Navy Federal, and she's mentoring. So she's what, 23, 24? And we had a mentor who just retired at age 90. She's finally told me, Sally, I've I've done all I can do. I have to retire now. So it really spans that whole gap. A lot of retired folks do this as a way to stay young and a way to do something meaningful. We have businesses in the area who allow employees release time to go mentor. So we have a lot of working people who do it either as part of their lunch hour or with release time. And we have young people in the world of work who want to do something.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

So your return rate of mentorship is really high too.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

At least. In fact, this year of the returning students, which was about 140, I think, 90% had the same mentor. That's an amazing statistic. And it's not because of me, it's not because of the program, it's because of the student. And they have gotten so attached and they want to see them continue. So they keep mentoring year after year. Of course, every year there's some mentors whose family situation changes or their job changed, or they're they've moved or whatever, and they have to stop. And so in that case, we find another mentor. But when a mentor can continue and they build year after year after year on that relationship, it's very, very special. And that's the ones who then stay in touch during college and beyond. Yeah, that is special for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

So what is next for you? Because when I think of you, because you were one of the first people that I interviewed two plus years ago, episode 59, for those that want to go back and listen. It was such a good interview, too. I was so impressed by your skills to be able to communicate, you know, the technical side and like the heartstring side of Take Stock and Children. But when I think of you now, I think of you as the mentor lady, you know? And so that's certainly a positive identity. But sometimes transitioning into retirement can cause, you know, like a little bit of a lost feeling, you know. So so what's next for you?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

What does the next chapter look like? My husband keeps saying, What are you gonna do? Yeah. Well, I'm gonna keep mentoring for what? I have two students I mentor right now, and I'll continue to be their mentor. But it it's time now for me to spend some more time with my own family. I have three grandchildren who live in Maryland. Gives me a chance to go see them more. I'll still certainly be a supporter of Take Stock and Children. And it's such a wonderful program changing lives through scholarships, but also mentors.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, absolutely. As we close, I would love for you to speak to the people that see mentorship as intimidating, maybe overly formal. And we talked about some people feel unqualified. You're such a natural recruiter for mentorship, but you're also a very good comforter. And I think it's interesting that you're still mentoring two people. I didn't know that. That's that's really, really cool. That really speaks to you value that process. What would you how would you encourage the listener who has, you know, been a fan since episode 59, but they still have it mentored?

SPEAKER_00 19:49

I would say sign up. Yeah. Um it's an opportunity to make a huge difference without having to make a huge output. The nice thing about Take Stock is we have a mentor toolkit, we call it, that provides activities for a mentor who needs a little more structure, especially at first, icebreakers and conversations you can have and games you can play and things you can do. But for most of the mentors, once they have had a number of meetings with a student, they wonder, why did I not do this before? It's much easier than I thought because I'm not expected to solve problems. I'm not expected to do their chemistry. I'm just expected to be their friend. My advice to mentors is always go with the idea that you're gonna make a new friend, a young person who wants to know more about life and what they might become, and just sharing some of your personal expertise and experiences and showing that you care can make such a difference.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Well said. Thank you so much for 25 years of investing in our community, and we will probably not fully know the butterfly effect that comes from that, the people that they themselves have become oriented to giving, right? Because you helped calibrate that. And that's such a gift to our community. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

It's a great feeling. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and share. Voices United in Education is a production of the Scambe County Public Schools.