This week our team was surprised with a generous gift from an anonymous donor who recognizes the challenges, sweat equity, and care our team puts into programming and equity based barrier reduction work. We are extremely grateful for this gift and the letter brought our team to tears. Thank you <3
“Dear Affinity Staff: I am a community member acquainted with the work of Affinity and the work that you do is impressive. I have kept up with the updates from your organization over the years, and know how big of an impact you have made in the local community. I know that, in general, working for a nonprofit can be both extremely rewarding, yet challenging. I can’t imagine how much harder it would be to work at a nonprofit in the midst of a pandemic. I admire the way all of you at Affinity have not only been able to pivot, but also be successful as a nonprofit during this difficult time. It is more important now than ever that nonprofits doing the work that you do continue. With school being so different this year for students, we can never fully know the impact that having a constant caring adult will have on their future.
I know each of you are very dedicated and passionate about the work that you do, which can oftentimes be under appreciated. Communities often show what is most important to them by where they put their money; I value the work that you do every day and believe it is of utmost importance. I want to take this time to say thank you; thank you for your hard work. Thank you for always being willing to learn and grow. Thank you for teaching. Thank you for all of the paperwork and emails and phone calls that no one ever sees. Thank you for the home visits, porch drop offs, and reminders. Thank you for making an impact in the lives of students and families, even though you may never see the results of that impact. This is an incredibly fierce group of people and if you can make this much of an impact in the face of a pandemic, then I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Affinity Mentoring.”
January not only represents the start of a new year, but it is also National Mentoring Month! We couldn’t be more excited to start the year with exciting news! The Affinity team determined that there was a need to revise the current mission statement to more accurately reflect our work, and add a vision statement to help clearly forecast where we believe we are going as an organization.
New Mission + Vision
Our mission is to facilitate equitable growth in academics, social emotional skills, and self-esteem through mutually beneficial mentoring relationships. We believe in cultivating a brave space that amplifies the voices of young agents of change in a diverse and inclusive community.
Our vision is to be a leading nonprofit for fostering belonging alongside young people, families, and community.
We want to know who we are and be consistent enough to be recognizable, but also be open to change, listen well, and recognize when we are being moved into the next phase of ourselves as an organization. We know that Affinity, as well as our community, has been changing rapidly, and we are no longer the small, new, but beautiful organization that grew out of the missions department of Mars Hill Bible Church. We decided it was important to review our mission statement to ensure that it accurately represents what we are doing and the vision we have for Affinity in the future.
Next Steps: Community Listening Project
We recognize we cannot fulfill our mission and vision without listening to our community members. 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. Read the Report.
This year I’ve gotten the opportunity to mentor Byron, a student at Southwest Community Campus. Growing up as a first generation immigrant, where both my parents worked hard to support our family, meant my parents did not have much time to help me navigate school or the workforce. Fortunately, along my journey I had mentors who helped guide me to where I am today.
One of those mentors was and continues to be Adriana Almanza, former Associate Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Grand Valley State University. She connected me with financial aid and social resources while also challenging me to pursue a masters degree.
Fast forward to today, I am a young professional who graduated college debt free, holds a Masters Degree, and is working in a fulfilling role within Human Resources at the University of Chicago – all because I had mentors who motivated and guided me. I am now in a good place to give back to my community and thus when I heard of Affinity Mentoring I knew that through this organization I could finally support someone through mentorship just as I once was.
Although I now live in Chicago, IL I knew I still wanted to give back to the West Michigan community as this was where most of my mentors were from and holds a special place in my heart. I’ve now been meeting with my mentee Byron through Zoom for a few weeks and have gotten to provide him with some guidance while also learning from him.
One thing that I’ve slowly realized is that mentoring goes both ways, through every interaction with my mentee there is also an opportunity for me to learn: both my mentee and myself bring a wealth of knowledge that is super valuable. Every week we meet, I check in to see how he is doing, make it a priority to teach Byron a new word, spend time talking about career paths, and engage in discussions about fun outdoor activities.
I am thankful for Zoom as it has made mentoring from Chicago a possibility – I am easily able to share my screen and play games virtually. Although we aren’t together in person I feel like I am still able to successfully mentor Byron through Zoom. I appreciate Affinity Mentoring for adapting to these changing times, providing mentors with several resources to be successful virtually, and for making mentoring remotely a possibility!
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.”
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).
Dave Veldink + Student Mentee
“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 Affinitywe 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!
Laurie Vanderbroek + Student Mentee
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.
Hannah is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s of Social Work at Grand Valley State University and plans to continue her education to earn a Master’s of Social Work. She works as the Director of Operations for a local marketing agency and is excited to learn more about community building and program development while interning with Affinity. Hannah understands the importance of mentoring as she had two adults from her church mentor her throughout her childhood and teen years. In her free time, she enjoys painting, baking, playing volleyball, and spending time with her twin niece and nephew.
Hannah will be working alongside Affinity’s Director of Development, Rachel Humphreys, and Burton Site Coordinator, Rocio Moreno.
Hallie Miller
Hallie Miller is pursuing her Bachelor’s of Social Work a minor in Psychology at Calvin University. Born and raised in Oceanside, California, she moved to Michigan for college in the hopes of experiencing four seasons. After Calvin, she plans to pursue a Master’s of Social Work focusing on Community Organizing and working with non-profits in the future. She is excited about interning with Affinity because she believes education is so important and has the potential change lives.
Hallie will be working with Rocio Moreno, Site Coordinator at Burton Elementary.
Zach Yokom
Zach Yokom is a MSW/MPA graduate student studying Nonprofit Management. He has lived in the Grand Rapids area since 2011, but is originally from Canton, MI. Zach has been working in the GRPS school system for 3 years and brings a variety of different perspectives from a collection of roles and positions, including IKUS: Life Enrichment Services and Ottawa Hills High School. He has a passion for working with youth and supporting them along their journey towards adulthood. He notes that he has had great leaders in his life, personally and professionally, that have helped him grow immensely and he hopes to enrich others in the same way.
Zach will be working with Affinity’s Executive Director, Cassandra Kiger on fund development and sustainability.
If you or your employer are interested in learning more about our internship programs please contact info@affinitymentoring.org.
