The primary role of a volunteer is to be a mentor. A mentor at Cabrini Connections acts like a surrogate parent, aunt or uncle. The role is a motivator, a coach, a tutor, and an advocate. You are a guide. Your purpose is not to shape a youth to your values, but to help them be everything they have the potential to be. When you are a mentor you show a student you care. This means many things. You show this by attendance, by your interest in what they do, what they are doing in school, who they are and what is important to them.
Read the WEEKLY NEWSLETTER (see link at left) to stay alert to what is happening at Cabrini Connections each week.
Read the CabriniBlog to meet our teens and volunteers.
One of the primary roles of mentors is to know about extra learning opportunities for teens and to try to motivate youth to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible. While Cabrini Connections staff will try to lead youth and volunteers to these opportunities, we host an Internet library that enables each person to search for the opportunities that best fit their own interests and needs.
One way to stay informed and plan your schedule of involvement, is to read the Cabrini Connections Planning Wiki.
The Tutoring part of the Cabrini Connections tutor/mentor program is not doing homework with kids (although that's something you may do). It's building student aspirations, communications skills, study skills and motivation so that a student can do homework every day, and that they can find help on the Internet, or from peers and teachers, when they need help. The academic focus is to connect career aspirations with the academic work students must do to get into college, or into vocational programs, that enable them to have the career choices they want.
Just like any parent, your mission is to provide consistent, on-going attention and encouragement. You serve as a guide to help students find a spark that turns the youth into a motivated learner who begins to take responsibility for his/her own future. This is a process that is different for everyone. It has greater success if we can expand the range of experiences and influences a student is exposed to while maintaining continuity of the mentors who coach this process.
You are also asked to help build the capacity of the organization. If you're a parent of a school-age child, you've already been asked to serve on the PTA, participate in school fund raisers, or be an organizer for some activity. As a volunteer at Cabrini Connections you're asked to be part of the leadership, to help with fundraising, and to help organize activities that inspire our kids and help train our volunteers.
Every year we have more than 100 volunteers involved in Cabrini Connections. If we can unleash the talent and network of all of you, we will be able to find all of the resources we need to make this program work.
The fund raising role is a simple one. Tell people you know about Cabrini Connections. Ask people who can help, to help.
If you find a way to do this every week, there will be many more people looking to help.
