Newsletter
Taucia Rowley Cluff
Parowan, UT
FLHD-Early Childhood and Family Services
Leadership Engagement Track
4H Mentoring Program
For my EDGE project I mentored under the direction of the 4H program with the Utah State Extension office in Cedar City. The mentoring program is given students’ names in our community by parents and schools that need extra help. They may be struggling with grades, with finding friends or with family life. The program then takes these students and assigns them to a mentor. Mentors are placed as necessary into a one on one or group mentoring system to meet the child's needs. The overall goals for the 4H mentoring program is to improve student's academic performace, enhance social skills and stregthen family bonds.
The mentoring program has activities and family night out events almost each month. These activities give mentors and thier students, along with their families, an opportunity to meet new peers and families that may be struggling with similar problems. On weeks that these activities do not take place, mentors meet with their student to help with homework or whatever they feel they need help with. The 4H program is a great opportunity to get involved in the community and truly be a leader for students and families that need a little extra help.
I know that I truly helped people by performing this service of being a mentor. I benefited the 4H program as willingly volunteering to be a mentor for them when they were short mentors. I benefited the little girl I mentored as I became an advocate to her and someone she could look up to. I helped her overcome social barriers as she struggled with finding friends. Throughout mentoring I could see the changes in her as she began to willingly associate with and converse with other individuals. I also benefitted my studen's family in being a friend to them and someone they could contact and look to when they needed help.
This oppotunity also benefitted me in many ways. By doing this project I had many experiences that will help me in my life. It truly changed me by making me a better person. This opportunity helped me strive to want to help and serve others like I always have. It gave me experiences and friendships that will be with me forever and skills that will help me in my career of being a mom and also being in the early childhood program as I help young students. This project was a great experience that taught me many life lessons.
The inspiration I had to mentor for my EDGE project came from a friend that worked for the 4H program. She was discussing with me that the program was looking for mentors and asked if I would consider helping out. After little consideration I decided it would be a great opportunity for me as well as a great service to use for my EDGE project. I went to the office located on Main Street in Cedar and asked how I could sign up. They had me sign a few documents and then they assigned me to a student. I was given the phone number and email address of my student's parent and I got in touch with them to set up times that I could come meet with them. I am so grateful that my friend thought to contact me when they were looking for mentors. I did this project because I love to serve and help others and this was a perfect opportunity to do so.
For the most part, this project went smoothly, but there were some challenges I faced while trying to complete this project. I found that the biggest challenge was finding time to meet with my student. Her schedule was always busy so I found that in order for me to meet with her each week I needed to be willing to set aside my plans and be willing to go whenever she was able. There were only a couple weeks that our schedules did not work out in any way so we were not able to meet. Another challenge that came up was fitting in the final EDGE course into my school schedule as I have needed to take 18 credits a semester. Thankfully I was able to drop an unneeded course and take this course instead.
"Being able to see social changes in my student has been awesome. This week at an activity night she was able to engage in conversation with another girl that she had never met before."