April 4, 2010 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again",2nd Semester,Life in General,Nonprofit Explorations,Prescott College,School Daze,Spring 2010,Sunday Scribblings,The 4-1-1 on Me,WriterMentor,WriterVolunteer
Today’s word of the day is brought to you by Sunday Scribblings: Mentor
Last year, I had the immense pleasure of being a mentor. From Sept to Dec I was a mentor through Free Arts AZ. For 14 weeks, another girl and I were placed at an all-girls group home. Every Saturday morning, for an hour, we drew, painted, wrote, cut and pasted, made bracelets…whatever. Basically, we played. These girls started to get used to us being there every week and couldn’t believe we were taking the time out of our lives to spend time with them. For free.
It was the best, most life-changing experience of my life.
I’ve been wanting to volunteer for a youth-based organization for a long time, but I was looking for a specific organization. And I found it with Free Arts AZ. They fit with the business I plan to open and I was able to utilize my writing skills there. I still volunteer for them when they have events on the weekends. If you ever get a chance to be a mentor for youth, do it. It will so change your life. I promise.
Currently, as I’ve mentioned numerous times before, I’m attending Prescott College to get my degree in Nonprofit Management. That business I mentioned above? I want to open a nonprofit writing center for teens. Actually, when starting out, it’ll probably just be different writing workshops, and not so much a building to conduct them in. I want to focus on putting these programs into public schools and youth-based nonprofit organizations.
But I digress.
The students who attend Prescott College create their own degree plan and then find mentors within their community—or nationally—to “mentor” the courses. They offer some online courses, but the majority of your degree plan is created by you. I’m actually looking for mentors for my classes right now, so if you’re interested, read all about it here. Since I know nothing about the nonprofit sector, I’m learning from the ground up and I created courses that, I hope, will prepare me for opening my own nonprofit. The Spring semester is almost over and the mentor for my Nonprofit Explorations course, Kristi, has been amazing. She’s also going to be the mentor for my Fundraising course. The difference between this college and other 4 yr colleges is that you’re learning by doing. You’re working side by side with a professional in the field and you’re getting hands-on experience. I think I learn best this way because I’m applying it as I learn it. And I’ll have all this knowledge for later.
The only thing that sucks for an introvert like me is going out and asking complete strangers to be my mentor. There’s a lot of stepping-outside-my-comfort-zone goin’ on, but I’m meeting some great people. And hopefully, I’ll be working with them in the future. On a professional level.
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Tumblewords says:
Nice post – good luck!