Community Partner Archives - Page 3 of 9

Community Listening Project: Data Released

March 2021

While launching our updated mission and vision statements in January 2021 we realized that we needed to be held actively accountable to these statements by opening ourselves up to feedback, critique, and ideas in new and regular ways. We cannot fulfill our mission and vision without listening to our community members.

As we dream past these pandemic days, anticipating new challenges and opportunities, we launched a new Community Listening Survey as a step in creating a regular cycle of public feedback on our work, and giving power to the community to speak into where we will direct our resources and which projects we will prioritize.

In three weeks we received nearly 100 public submissions;
22% of which came directly from families with students receiving mentoring; and
34% of which were from current or past mentors.

We acknowledge and validate that simply collecting public survey data is not enough, and is regularly used to give organizations credibility while continuing with their own agendas, and/or to strip the wisdom and learned experience from community members without acknowledgement or compensation.

Therefore, we commit to the following standards and invite you to tell us if we are not holding ourselves accountable to them:

To take all feedback seriously;
To review all feedback equitably, giving the highest regard to the ideas and opinions of those most directly impacted by our work;
To view all feedback and experiences as valid and true, never dismissing someone because they hold a different experience than someone else or even the majority;
To consistently and regularly find opportunities to adjust and direct our programming as requested by the community;
To regularly pair our own explanation of our work alongside the community’s evaluation of our work, including critique;
To work to avoid exploiting community wisdom and talent without compensation by being clear about the use of research, how it will impact the community, what we intend to do with data, and offering compensation for expertise whenever possible;
To never assume that we are experts in someone else’s life experience, but to allow each person to be the expert of their own experience.

We are grateful for our community and feel honored to be able to partner alongside organizations, community members, schools, families, and students towards more equitable futures for young people.

Community Listening Project Results
January 2021 Project Summary [English]
One Page Highlights [English]

January 2021 Project Summary [Spanish]
One Page Highlights [Spanish]

We are committed to building and maintaining a sustainable, high quality mentoring program that positively impacts our community. We value openness and transparency in our work – to see all of our annual reports, audited financial statements, and any other pertinent materials visit our Impact + Reports page.

Mission, Mutual Liberation, and BLM

Mission, Mutual Liberation, and BLM: A Letter from Affinity’s Executive Director

On June 1, like many local and national organizations, Affinity Mentoring made a public statement supporting Black Lives Matter (BLM). We struggled with the decision of whether or not to release a statement, not because we don’t fully support it, but because a statement is just words unless there is action and accountability behind it. We decided to publicly show our support for BLM to hold ourselves accountable, lean into our mission, and leverage our networks and resources to encourage others to do so. Included in our statement we wrote:

“We believe an individual’s ability to provide for their family, have access to basic resources, and an opportunity for equitable education are all pieces of this broader work. Over 80% of the students and families that partner with Affinity identify as people of color, and over 80% are economically disadvantaged; this is not a coincidence (Learn more about equitable economic growth and access to capital).”

Additionally, our website reads: “[w]e work towards the mutual liberation of all community members and believe that youth are already leaders and community members, but need equitable access and platforms to use their voice.” This verbiage is based on a quote by Lilla Watson, an Indigenous Australian artist and activist who stated, “[i]f you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

As we continue to internally scrutinize our work and identify our blindspots and where we have room for improvement, one key area is in how we spend our dollars, and deciding to intentionally reinvest back into the communities we partner alongside. We have taken advantage of the Grand Rapids Area Black Businesses’ (GRABB) #30days30dollars challenge to hold ourselves publicly accountable to making financial decisions that support Black lives.

In GRABB’s words, “[t]he challenge aims to promote Black-owned businesses across the city and increase dollars flowing to the businesses and communities they are located in. By shifting your dollars to Black Businesses you will be playing a vital role improving the quality of life in economically marginalized neighborhoods in Grand Rapids while purchasing great products and services.”

We want to make it clear that this is not charity or philanthropy work. We need these services and products, we investigated who had the ability to provide quality services and products, and Black-owned businesses have earned our capital. During the month of September Affinity Mentoring spent $3,898 at local, Black-owned businesses, and between last quarter and this quarter we will have spent $5,845 at local, Black-owned businesses. As September comes to a close and the #30days30dollars challenge ends we call on individuals, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations to consider not only how programming and products impact our community, but how expenditures can contribute towards greater wealth divides or greater equity amongst community members; our mutual liberation depends upon our conscious decisions.

Diatribe Artwork through Woosah Collaboration

Below is a list of businesses that Affinity has or will receive excellent products and services from; we highly recommend each of them. We invite the community to continue to hold us accountable and continue challenging us on ways that we can improve living out our belief that Black Lives Matter. We also gratefully accept recommendations or new ideas for how we can continue to spend our money at Black-owned businesses.

Sincerely,

Cassandra Kiger, Executive Director

Local Black-Owned Businesses:

Daddy’s Dough Cookies
- We highly recommend the Cookie Baking Kits for a team building activity to do in-person or virtually, individually wrapped snacks for in-person events, and they will be a featured part of our Cuentos y Comida event goodie bags.
Shannon Cohen, Inc.
- Not only do we keep a stash of Shannon Cohen cards for every occasion in the office, but four staff members attended the Rockstar Woman Brunch 2020.
Malamiah Juice
- A featured part of our Cuentos y Comida goodie bags, part of our staff “Shout Out” prizes, and they make excellent booster shots to keep our team healthy.
Rising Grinds Cafe
- We encourage teammates to recognize each other’s achievements for a chance to win local gift cards! Also, don’t miss the mouth watering Rising Grinds Soul Food Menu.
Mosby’s Popcorn
- Their Social Pop program will be a featured part of our Cuentos y Comida goodie bags.
Genesis Consulting Group
- They will be running our online Cuentos y Comida event; tune in to see their amazing skills.
Grounded In Equity
- Christine Mwangi is highly experienced in leading teams through diversity, equity and inclusion work, and she will be supporting our team as we work to build better DEI practices into our long-term strategic planning. Contact her at groundedinequity@gmail.com.
Medra’s Art by Medra Stoner
- Medra Stoner, a local mix-media artist, completed two commissioned pieces that now hang in the Affinity Mentoring Goei Center office. You can follow her on Instagram and Facebook at @medras_art.
The Diatribe
- The Diatribe collaborated with Woosah to create a series of posters in support of Black Lives Matter. Four of these posters hang in the Affinity Mentoring Goei Center office.

For a more comprehensive list of Black-owned businesses check out GRABB’s Directory.

Advancing Equity through Innovative Partnerships

By Rachel Humphreys

At Affinity, we work towards the mutual liberation of all of our community and believe that youth are already leaders and community members, but need equitable access and platforms to use their voice. Affinity’s mentoring model provides individual, one hour per week mentoring with trained, safe, supportive adults to support the growth of leadership and social-emotional skills, as well as math and literacy skills.

“We collaborate closely with school administration, community partners, and community members that share our values to build close relationships and are strategically involved in area schools in a manner that strives to advance equity. Our partners help recruit mentors, financially support our program, and advocate for our organization,” explains Cassandra Kiger, executive director of Affinity Mentoring. “We have nearly 30 local partners, including Gordon Food Service, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Steelcase Foundation, and Kent School Services Network.”

Jeans Day Fundraiser at GFS Headquarters

This year we have worked extremely hard to rebuild and innovatively rethink our entire approach to mentoring in the most equitable way possible. As we reviewed community feedback and local data on health and safety, as well as personal fears surrounding COVID of various populations (Kent County Racial/Ethnic Data) (Kent Co. Latinos with COVID Die Younger and More Often) (African Americans Disproportionately Affected), we quickly realized that traditional mentoring would no longer be accessible to all students.

For the past eight weeks the Affinity team has worked tirelessly to develop accessible, equitable, and safe methods for all mentors and mentees to continue meeting weekly from the safety of their homes, and/or with students in clean, individual spaces in mentor centers. “The overall cost of this overhaul in staff time and material resources has been approximately $30,000 above and beyond regular programming costs, but we believe that it is worth all students safely having access to mentoring, and we recognize the long-term investment that we are making in accessibility and technology,” explains Cassandra.

We shared our need for COVID relief and virtual mentoring support and our partners at Gordon Food Service (GFS) immediately stepped up to help. Despite being financially affected themselves by the pandemic, GFS committed to supplying 60 devices for our Mentor Centers. (Though students receive devices through their school, each household has a different level of technological fluency. Devices will be provided to families who specifically site issues with technology navigation as a barrier to virtual mentoring, as these devices will be specifically preprogrammed with all technology necessary for mentoring.) This equates to roughly $12,000 in technology support, not including the countless hours their IT department spent to ensure the computers were ready for students and mentors. GFS has been one of Affinity’s community partners since 2015 and the number of employees that volunteer as mentors has grown exponentially (8 to 84).

“Our [company] culture is reflective of our values. The Gordons are an amazing family and [Affinity Mentoring] ties in closely with the values of GFS,” says Dave Veldink, NA Director of Marketing and Merchandising Operations at Gordon Food Service and longtime mentor at Affinity.

Not only are employees encouraged to volunteer, but leadership at GFS has done everything to remove obstacles from employees who would like to be mentors. This includes being flexible about scheduling accommodations for mentors and not requiring hourly employees to clock out during their mentoring hours.

“We are proud to support Affinity Mentoring as an organization, but it’s our caring volunteer mentors that are the heart of our effort,” explains Rich Wolowski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gordon Food Service (GFS). “This recent donation of technology will help ensure kids continue to connect with and build relationships with their mentors, to the social and academic benefit of the students, their families, and our community.”

At Affinity we are grateful for our partners, like Gordon Food Service, who find innovative ways to leverage their resources, social capital, and network to support mentoring. To find out more about becoming a community partner click here.

Affinity is accepting applications for new mentors for Fall 2020. Our goal is to recruit 100 new mentors by September 9 and we currently need 53 more!

Become a Mentor | Apply Now >
No prior mentoring experience is needed and we match people based on their interests, personalities, and background! Last year we matched 286 students with a mentor, our goal this year is 300. The online application takes less than 10 minutes. Once you have applied you will be contacted by one of our program staff to schedule an in-person interview. For the health and safety of students and mentors, this year mentoring will be virtual (learn more).

Commitment
One hour per week (during the school day 8am-4pm) for one school year (late September – late May). We cater to working professionals and can be flexible and reschedule sessions.

Mentoring Sites | More Info Here >

Burton Elementary School and Burton Middle School
Southwest Community Campus Elementary
Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center

Kent District Library Partnership

By Rachel Humphreys

Kent District Library (KDL) has been an excellent partner alongside Affinity Mentoring for the past year. “KDL leadership is proud to support Affinity Mentoring and grow our partnership this fall. All KDL employees are encouraged to become mentors. To help make this a reality all KDL employees can use one paid hour of time each week to mentor,” explains Brian Mortimore, Director of Human Resources and Organizational Development at KDL and mentor at Burton Elementary.

“Promoting literacy skills is what we’re all about so it was a natural fit for KDL to partner with Affinity Mentoring and encourage our staff to mentor young people and we’re proud to continue that tradition in the year ahead,” continues Brian.

KDL plans to help recruit more employees this year even though mentoring will look at bit different. For the health and safety of students and mentors, this year mentoring will be in a virtual format (read more on virtual mentoring). However, what hasn’t changed is the support, “mentors will continue to have extensive support from site coordinators at each school, and support students in building skills in leadership, self-confidence, literacy and math,” says Cassandra Kiger, Executive Director of Affinity Mentoring.

Last year 8 KDL employees served as mentors and we want to highlight what a few had to say about their experience.

Julie Cook | Wyoming Assistant Branch Librarian
“My favorite memory with my mentee is doing hands-on literacy activities, fooling them that we are just playing a game, but in reality, we are practicing important literacy skills. I would highly suggest that KDL employees take the opportunity to be a positive role model in a child’s life, especially if they are located near your KDL branch. You can promote KDL materials and programing ideas to a child. It really shows that an adult in her life, outside of her family, really cares for their success socially, emotionally, and academically.”

Anjie Gleisner | Wyoming Branch Manager
“As a youth librarian turned library manager, I often miss reading to my story time kiddos! It’s wonderful to be able to share books with a child again. Mentoring has been a great way to establish a connection with a school near my library and it’s a wonderful change of pace to my work week. It’s something that I have always wanted to do but could not because of my work schedule. My employer allowed me the flexibility to do this during the workday. This was a huge plus! It’s something that I look forward to every week.”

Learn more about our community partnerships or sign up to become a mentor.

Affinity COVID-19 Response Plan

[Disponible en Español abajo]

Affinity Mentoring is committed to the health and safety of our students, volunteers, and staff. We continue to keep up to date with the most recent directives from Governor Whitmer, Kent County Health Department, and schools partners (Grand Rapids Public Schools and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools). We are using the MI Safe Schools: Michigan’s 2020-21 Return to School Roadmap to plan out health and safety measures we need to safely run mentoring this fall. The Roadmap provides required, strongly recommended, and recommended safety protocols to keep school communities safe based on the local status of the coronavirus. Additionally, the Roadmap provides recommendations across mental and social-emotional health, instruction, and operations within each phase of the MI Safe Start Plan to support all schools in Michigan as they continue their return to school planning and move towards implementation.

Health and Safety Recommendations

As stated in the Roadmap, “The effects of COVID-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups and vulnerable populations are still emerging; however, current data suggest a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups. Evidence also indicates that access to technology—devices and high-speed internet—is correlated to race and socioeconomic status which is likely to manifest in learning loss amongst vulnerable populations.”

Over 80% of the students and families we partner with at Affinity identify as people of color and are financially disadvantaged. We are committed to implementing all required and strongly recommended protocols, and as many recommended safety protocols as resources allow to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19 to our students and families that are most vulnerable in the community. Additionally we make the following commitments as we continue to navigate this pandemic alongside the community:

HEALTH PRACTICES: We will follow all of the most up to date health practices and recommendations as communicated by Governor Whitmer and the Kent County Health Department.
PARTNERSHIP: We will work closely with all of our community partners and, if they have more restrictive COVID-19 prevention policies, we will rise to their standards.
SAFETY: We will not allow any staff or mentor to be in the school buildings or meet one-on-one with students who, at the time of the meeting, tests positive for COVID-19, is symptomatic, or has knowledge of being around a COVID-19 positive individual in the past two weeks.
EQUITY: We will continue to support our community partners, students, and families through this time and provide resources and assistance as needed and able while maintaining and increasing our focus on equity through this process.
WORKING REMOTELY: Affinity Mentoring staff will continue to work remotely until it is safe for all industries to return to work. Staff are available via email. General questions can be directed to info@affinitymentoring.org.

Virtual Mentoring

At this time we are preparing our programming to take place under Phase 4 (or less) of the Roadmap which recommends that schools be open for in-person instruction with more stringent safety protocols. In this Phase we can anticipate short-term dismissals, suspension of extracurricular activities, and reducing non-essential personnel in the building.

Keeping this in mind, it is our plan to move forward with the 2020-2021 mentoring program, however it will be converted to a virtual format. At this time we do not have all of the details but we are committed to providing:

students with the technology needed to connect virtually with their mentor*;
full site coordination and support for mentors and mentees in relationship building and technology use; and
adapting orientation, information sessions, and ongoing training to virtual models.

*Mentors will be asked to provide their own device with audio/video capabilities and access to the internet. We will have more detailed information and instructions available mid-August. If mentors have any immediate concerns about this, please contact us at info@affinitymentoring.org.

Virtual Mentoring Costs

We are committed to providing mentoring services at no cost to families, students, or our school partners. There is a significant start-up cost for adapting our in-person mentoring program to a virtual platform. To learn more about our financial needs and how you can help check out our COVID-19 Relief Blog.

Questions or Concerns? Please direct your questions to the following people:

Returning mentors, mentees, or family member: contact your site coordinator directly
New mentor questions: Rocio Moreno at rmoreno@affinitymentoring.org
Community partners (in-kind donations, financial support, etc): Rachel Humphreys at rhumphreys@affinitymentoring.org
General questions about COVID-19 protocols and safety: Cassandra Kiger at ckiger@affinitymentoring.org

We will continue to share updates and resources with our families, students, volunteers, and community via email, our website, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages.

During this uncertain time, we ask that you continue to support the work of Affinity Mentoring and other nonprofits in our community. Your support through finances and time is more important than ever.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding during these challenging times.

MAKE A DONATION

Thank you!
– Affinity Mentoring team

Resources

Affinity MIOSHA COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan

MI Safe Schools: Michigan’s 2020-21 Return to School Roadmap
Kent County Health Department
Grand Rapids Public Schools Coronavirus Resources Page
Godfrey-Lee Public Schools COVID-19 Information
Grand Rapids Area Mutual Aid Network
– Offering or Requesting Support Form
– COVID-19 Volunteer Translation Services
Free Online Educational Resources via GRPS
GR Children’s Museum At Home Play Activities and Resources

Plan de Respuesta de Affinity para COVID-19

Affinity Mentoring está comprometido a la buena salud y la seguridad de nuestros estudiantes, voluntarios y personal. Seguimos actualizándonos con las directivas más recientes de la Gobernadora Whitmer, el Departamento de Salud del Condado de Kent y los socios de las escuelas (Escuelas Públicas de Grand Rapids y Escuelas Públicas de Godfrey-Lee). Estamos utilizando la Guía MI Safe Schools: Michigan’s 2020-21 Return to School Roadmap para planificar las medidas de salud y seguridad que necesitamos para llevar a cabo la mentoría de manera segura este otoño. La Guía proporciona protocolos de seguridad requeridos, altamente recomendados y recomendados para mantener a las comunidades escolares seguras de acuerdo con el estatus local del coronavirus. Además, la Guía proporciona recomendaciones sobre salud mental y socioemocional, instrucción y operaciones dentro de cada fase del Plan de Inicio Seguro de MI para apoyar a todas las escuelas en Michigan a medida que continúan la planificación para regresar a la escuela y avanzan hacia la implementación.

RECOMENDACIONES DE SALUD Y SEGURIDAD

Como se indica en la Guía, “Los efectos de COVID-19 en la salud de los grupos minoritarios raciales y étnicos y las poblaciones vulnerables aún están en estatus emergente; sin embargo, los datos actuales sugieren una carga desproporcionada de enfermedad y muerte entre los grupos minoritarios raciales y étnicos. La evidencia también indica que el acceso a la tecnología (dispositivos e Internet de alta velocidad) está correlacionado con la raza y el estado socioeconómico que probablemente se manifieste en la pérdida de aprendizaje entre las poblaciones vulnerables.”

Más del 80% de los estudiantes y las familias con las que apoyamos en Affinity se identifican como personas de color y están en desventaja financiera. Estamos comprometidos a implementar todos los protocolos requeridos y altamente recomendados, y tantos protocolos de seguridad recomendados como permitan nuestros recursos para minimizar el riesgo de exposición al COVID-19 para nuestros estudiantes y familias que son más vulnerables en la comunidad. Además, asumimos los siguientes compromisos a medida que continuamos navegando esta pandemia junto con la comunidad:

PRÁCTICAS DE SALUD: Seguiremos todas las prácticas y recomendaciones de salud más actualizadas según lo comunicado por la Gobernadora Whitmer y el Departamento de Salud del Condado de Kent.
COLABORACIÓN: Trabajaremos en colaboración con todos nuestros socios de la comunidad y, si tienen políticas de prevención COVID-19 más restrictivas, alcanzaremos hasta sus estándares.
SEGURIDAD: No permitiremos que ningún miembro del personal o mentor esté en los edificios de la escuela o se reúnan uno a uno con estudiantes que, en el momento de la reunión, den positivo por COVID-19, tengan sintomáticos o tengan conocimiento de estar cerca de un COVID -19 individuo positivo en las últimas dos semanas.
EQUIDAD: Continuaremos apoyando a nuestros socios comunitarios, estudiantes y familias durante este tiempo y proporcionaremos recursos y asistencia según sea necesario y posible mientras mantenemos y aumentamos nuestro enfoque en la equidad a través de este proceso.
TRABAJANDO DE FORMA REMOTA: El personal de Affinity Mentoring continuará trabajando de forma remota hasta que sea seguro para todas las industrias volver a trabajar. El personal está disponible por correo electrónico. Las preguntas generales pueden dirigirse a info@affinitymentoring.org.

MENTORÍA VIRTUAL

En este momento, estamos preparando nuestra programación para la Fase 4 (o menos) de la Guía que recomienda que las escuelas estén abiertas para la instrucción en persona con protocolos de seguridad más estrictos. En esta Fase podemos anticipar despidos a corto plazo, la suspensión de actividades extracurriculares y la reducción de personal no esencial en el edificio.

Teniendo esto en cuenta, es nuestro plan avanzar con el programa de mentoría 2020-2021, sin embargo, se convertirá a un formato virtual. En este momento no tenemos todos los detalles, pero estamos comprometidos a proporcionar:

a los estudiantes la tecnología necesaria para conectarse virtualmente con su mentor*;
coordinación completa del sitio y apoyo para mentores y mentorizados en el desarrollo de relaciones y el uso de tecnología; y
adaptación de la orientación, sesiones de información y capacitación continua a modelos virtuales.

*Se pedirá a los mentores que proporcionen su propio dispositivo con capacidades de audio/video y acceso al Internet. Tendremos información más detallada e instrucciones disponibles al medio de agosto. Si los mentores tienen alguna inquietud inmediata en este respecto, contáctenos en info@affinitymentoring.org.

COSTE DE MENTORÍA VIRTUAL

Estamos comprometidos a proporcionar servicios de mentoría sin costo para las familias, los estudiantes o nuestros socios escolares. Existe un costo inicial considerable para adaptar nuestro programa de mentoría en persona a una plataforma virtual. Para obtener más información sobre nuestras necesidades financieras y cómo puede ayudar, consulte nuestro blog de Apoyo para COVID-19.

¿Preguntas o preocupaciones? Dirija sus preguntas a las siguientes personas:

Mentores, mentorizados o miembro de la familia que regresan: póngase en contacto directamente con la coordinadora de su sitio
Preguntas de los nuevos mentores: Rocio Moreno
Socios de la comunidad (donaciones en especie, apoyo financiero, etc.): Rachel Humphreys
Preguntas generales sobre protocolos de COVID-19 y seguridad: Cassandra Kiger

Continuaremos compartiendo actualizaciones y recursos con nuestras familias, estudiantes, voluntarios y la comunidad por correo electrónico, nuestro sitio de web, Facebook y LinkedIn.

Durante este tiempo incierto, le pedimos que continúe apoyando el trabajo de Affinity Mentoring y otras organizaciones sin fines de lucro en nuestra comunidad. Su apoyo a través de las finanzas y su tiempo es más importante que nunca.

Gracias por su continuo apoyo y comprensión durante estos tiempos difíciles.

-Equipo de Affinity Mentoring

Recursos

Affinity MIOSHA COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan

Updated: August 31, 2020

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