Kinship Partners Inc.

School-Based Mentoring

Our mission is to provide intentional opportunities for meaningful connections, and sometimes those connections last a lifetime and sometimes for a school year.  Through our Lunch Buddies program, we bring together volunteer mentors and elementary-aged kids for a lunchtime connection point.  Volunteers meet with youth over two lunch periods per month.  For only two hours per month, our partnerships create wonderful relationships that benefit both the youth and our mentors!

Lunch Buddies is more structured than our community-based programs, and a Kinship staff person is always on hand to provide activities and support.

School staff and caregivers have said kids enrolled in Lunch Buddies tend to have better attendance at school, diminished behavioral issues, and a better attitude about school. Volunteering for this program may not take much time, but its impact is immeasurable!

Community-Based Program 

Since our inception in 1986, one-on-one partnerships between a youth and a caring adult have been the foundation of how we support our community.  Through careful screening, training, and ongoing support, we ensure our volunteer mentors are equipped to support a meaningful relationship with a young person.

Our youth-first focus provides us with the lens necessary to ensure we are helping provide safe spaces for our youth.  This means emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  With an intentional eye on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we do all we can to make sure everyone in our programs feels seen, valued, and affirmed as they are.

 

Mentoring Helps Combat the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently released a report titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, an advisory on the healing effects of social connection and community. According to Dr. Murthy, the "impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity." Dr. Murthy includes mentoring as an element of the three vital components of social connection. When you support Kinship, you are providing an antidote to this epidemic of loneliness; not only for our youth, but for our community as a whole.

Can we count on your support?

A national study on the costs of mentoring found, on average, it costs $1647 per year per youth engaged in school-based and community-based youth mentoring programs. That is nearly $200,000 simply for our program participants as we stand. When we add in administrative costs for indirect programming expenses, our annual budget exceeds $300,000. We rely on donations from our community members and local businesses to help us meet our budget and continue providing this valuable programming. While we celebrate how our programs help the individuals we support, research also shows that every $1 invested in youth mentoring programs yields a $3 return on investment for the community, so we know our programming at Kinship Partners has far-reaching community impact as well.

Give to Kinship Partners today and see just how far your contribution can go!