The Power of Mentoring
Lucas and Nathan
Nadine, a grandmother caring for her grandson, needed help. Despite her best efforts, discipline wasn’t working and trust was eroding. She wanted him to have a mentor. This is what Nadine has to say:
“Thankfully, you all found the perfect match for my Nathan. Lucas is a very kind man, with a gentleness that my Nathan needed. Lucas is a very good listener and an even better teacher. He has befriended my grandson and helped him become a very fine young man. To us, Lucas is more than a Big Brother; he is a friend and a mentor for Nathan. He is what every other Big Brother should be modeled after. Lucas helps Nathan academically, emotionally, physically and most of all spiritually.”
The feeling is mutual. You can hear it when Nathan talks about his mentor:
“Lucas is a very good person. He gives me advice when I need it, and he is very dependable. He calls me the day before we do whatever we do. We do stuff every weekend. It’s always fun. One time, he asked me if it was okay to talk to my teachers and I said, Yeah, sure, because I know that I can trust him to do what’s best for me. We have developed a relationship where there’s nothing we can’t talk about. Lucas also teaches me things like Backgammon and sometimes I beat him. We were also doing yard work, and it was my first time doing it. It was fun. He taught me things about nature, like living things, like Sycamores and how some leaves are bigger than others. We learned about Great Blue Herons, and I said, Don’t they look grey to you? and Lucas said, Actually, they do. We also were about 50 feet away from the Heron, and it was hunting for food so we didn’t want to bother it. He took me to historical places, museums, and music programs. We were biking one time, and we saw the Sunken Road. We also bike the battlefield, which is historical. We’ve also been to the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. We’ve been to programs at church, where he sings with a bunch of other people and they are separated by how low or how high they can sing. We also like to exercise. We hike, we bike, and we swim. We recycle, too. We recycle magazines, plastic, beer bottles and milk jugs. We pick up anything recyclable on the ground. I learned from Lucas trust, obedience, and friendship which are very important things. Because of this relationship, I see a very different future for myself. I’m doing better in school, and I hope one day I get all As. I want to become one of two things: an FBI agent or a Crypto zoologist. This is the stuff me and my mentor have discussed.”
Because of Rappahannock United Way funded programs like Rappahannock Big Brothers Big Sisters, 1,060 local school aged, at-risk children will benefit from mentoring and tutoring programs. These programs help children develop behaviors that demonstrate the value of education and lead to graduation.