Ryan Roff is a passionate, mission-oriented Affinity mentor and partner. For the past five years, Ryan has mentored a Burton Elementary student named Joel, building a lasting bond. Ryan is originally from Minneapolis, moving to Michigan to attend Calvin College many years ago. It is there that he met his wife, Brooke, whom he now has two young children with and settled into Grand Rapids.
Ryan is highly passionate about mentoring, which has led him to not only mentor, but partner his company, boldSOCKS, with Affinity as well. “I saw a need for mentoring,” said Ryan, “I valued mentors over the years in my own life and felt a desire to pass it on. I wanted to invest into someone else. Knowing there is a waitlist for students to be matched with mentors is heartbreaking.” Each week Ryan and Joel play games together like “traffic jam” and jenga, or sometimes they work on homework or draw.
Partnership with Affinity
Ryan is the CEO and Co-Owner of a Grand Rapids based company, boldSOCKS, which currently has 8 employees who mentor weekly at Affinity. Through company give-back programs and organizational culture, their team believes that, “Together, we are a community of bold difference makers that value more than just fun socks.”
Ryan firmly believes that, “for organizations to be sustainable they need the support of businesses. Individuals have the opportunity to help, but it’s the support of the businesses that are the lifeline.”
“It was just me [mentoring] at the beginning, but we were looking for year end opportunities. No one had a response, it was eye-opening. We needed to figure out ways for employees to get involved with important causes.” Ryan began recruiting employees to mentor too. Eventually it evolved from a handful to almost the entire team.
BoldSOCKS’ staff usually carpool together to mentor, making it a type of team-building activity. “Five of us go together – we like to come in like a wrecking ball and serve at the same time.” In addition to mentoring, boldSOCKS also supports Affinity’s Annual Benefit Dinner to help ensure more students are matched with a caring mentor.
Mateo + Eric
boldSOCKS team
Klarisa + Autumn
If you’re interested in learning more about our partnerships, click here! Or become a mentor, click here!
Affinity Launches “Learning and Growing Together Series” A discussion on race, culture, and inclusion in the mentoring relationship.
The goal of this workshop is for mentors to grow in their cultural intelligence and ability to use their expanded understanding to navigate cultural, experiential, racial, and other differences with their mentees successfully.
This will be an engaging and interactive session that deals with topics such as: cultural intelligence, cross-cultural communication, implicit bias, and healing racism.
Our goal is that attendees will walk away with:
increased cultural intelligence
elevated morale and energy
better communication and problem solving strategies
empowered to be even more effective mentors
All current mentors are encouraged to attend one of the three following training dates [a meal will be provided] :
Wednesday, August 7th [5:30pm-8:30pm] at the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan
Saturday, November 9th [9am-1pm] at Mars Hill Bible Church
Saturday, February 8th [9am-1pm] at Mars Hill Bible Church
About the Speaker This workshop will be led by Julian Newman, Founder/CEO of Culture Creative, who consults across the nation with organizations on the integration of cultural awareness. He is recognized as a creative and inspirational speaker/leader/consultant in the areas of organizational diversity and cultural agility initiatives. Julian holds a CQ Certificate through the Cultural Intelligence Center, is a certified facilitator for the Woodrick Center for Equity and Inclusion, a member of the Urban Core Collective Transformational Leaders Program, and was named to the Great Lakes Multi-Ethnic Regional Team to facilitate racial reconciliation and diversity training in Michigan faith communities.
About the Series
This series is part of Affinity Mentoring’s larger mission to be a more culturally responsive organization. Funds to provide this training were provided by Herman Miller Cares and Steelcase Foundation grants.
Make a small, monthly contribution to Affinity. Your gift will not only help students academically, but it’ll also give them the social and emotional support they need to work towards a positive future.
Affinity Mentoring is pleased to announce it has received a $75,000 multiyear ($25,000 per year for 3 years) capacity building grant from the Steelcase Foundation. These funds will support current mentoring relationships and serve as seed money to open a 4th site at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center (ECC) in Fall 2019.
“Schools, teachers, parents, and students from all over our community have been asking for Affinity Mentoring to be available in other schools,” says Laura Ward, Executive Director of Affinity Mentoring. “We’ve been working hard to build the capacity needed to expand the program. We’re thrilled to be able to add another site where students can receive additional academic, social emotional support and encouragement to reach their full potential.”
Since 2001 the mentoring program has matched over 1,500 students. However, there is a need for more. Affinity is building a multiyear expansion plan to serve more schools, like the 7 schools on the waiting list.
Julie Ridenour, President of the Steelcase Foundation says, “The Steelcase Foundation is honored to support Affinity Mentoring in its measured response to its program expansion. The growing number of requests from families for the mentoring services of Affinity is evidence of the quality of the work done by Affinity’s leadership and volunteers in three of the highest needs Kent County schools. The Steelcase Foundation is appreciative of Affinity’s willingness to base its work on best available research, rigorous analysis, and growing dedication to improving student literacy achievement.”
Kevin Polston, Superintendent of Godfrey-Lee Public Schools says, “Godfrey-Lee Public Schools believes in the impact mentoring can have on a child’s education and their overall wellbeing. One of our core values is community, the belief that it takes a village to raise a child. We are honored to begin a partnership with Affinity Mentoring to provide mentoring services at the Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center to bring out the brilliance in each child.”
In the upcoming year, Affinity will match up to 40 students at the ECC. The team is in the process of developing a robust fund development plan that includes grants, individual donations, corporate sponsorships, special events, and in-kind donations to ensure sustainability.
Loving Day is an annual celebration of the 1967 case involving Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving (Loving vs. Virginia) which struck down the criminalization of interracial marriage. On June 12, cities across the US remember this monumental day and celebrate multiracial love, identity, and acceptance.
For Affinity, this day holds a special place for many of our staff and board members. We asked them to share a bit about why this day is important to them.
“I’m thankful for those that paved a way for us. If they hadn’t, I’m certain we would be doing what we could to do it today. We’ve never once regretted loving each other and/or creating the family we have together. When I look at our kids, the product of our loving marriage of nearly 18 years (and going strong) … I see a beautiful representation of who we are and what we believe in! We love this big, diverse world we live in and long for the day our local communities better reflect that diversity! Until then, we will represent the best we can in the lives we live!”
Missy Jackson, Board Member
“When Wayne and I announced that we were engaged, we were told not to get married. We were told that people would treat us, and our future children, poorly because we’re an interracial couple. This month we’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary with our two beautiful children. We have experienced discrimination because of our interracial marriage. But, more frequently, we’ve been able to have really enlightening and beautiful conversations with people that cause them to think a bit differently. What can be more powerful to break down barriers than love?”
Laura Ward, Executive Director
“Thank you to the Lovings for fighting for their freedom to love, regardless of the discrimination they experienced. They have taught me that love is love regardless of what your partner looks like. Intertwining Vietnamese and Mexican culture has granted us both the opportunity to learn and experience new things in our lives.”
Angela Reyna, Program Assistant
“We were married in 1996 and have three BEAUTIFUL children with a heart for diversity in their friendships. We saw the Loving movie as a family a couple years back at a community celebration in Eastown. What was shocking to me was my son catching the fact that our marriage would still have been illegal in 2000, in at least one state.”
Johana Rodriguez-Quist, Board Member
“The idea of an anti-miscegenation law is difficult to grasp in 2019, which is a great thing. While some areas of our society certainly have a way to go when it comes to genuine tolerance and acceptance, we are happy and appreciate that we’re able to live our lives together and do not have to worry about the concept of state-sanctioned intolerance.”
Adam Russo, Board Member
“Loving Day is important to me because I’m the product of an interracial relationship, and because I’m in one as well. I’m so grateful for people like the Lovings who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that relationships like ours could be possible.”
