Community Partner Archives - Affinity Mentoring

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

Mars Hill Impact Tour

Join Affinity Mentoring for an evening to reflect on our journey to independence and future growth. The Mars Hill community has played a significant role in building, sustaining, and championing our mission to lift up children in a supportive network.

Come witness firsthand, the impact of your contributions of service and financial support. As a compelling force for good, we want to thank you for your devotion to the Burton families. There will be refreshments, a tour of the Burton Mentor Center, and a short presentation to share the measurable change you have made and where we’re headed next.

Date: Thursday, October 17, 2019
Time: 6pm-7:30pm
Location: Burton Elementary

RSVP HERE

Molina Healthcare Supports Affinity’s New Wyoming Site

Molina Healthcare has awarded Affinity Mentoring $2,500 to support expansion to Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center. Molina’s support will be used to help cover the cost of recruitment, screening, training, and ongoing match support for the new cohort of mentor matches.

“Molina Healthcare of Michigan is proud to support Affinity Mentoring’s new site at Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center. Affinity Mentoring is working to interrupt the cycle of poverty and improve the life of our communities children by pairing kindergartners and first graders with engaging mentors for one hour, once a week. We were impressed to learn that when pairing a child with a quality mentor the student has better attendance, attitudes toward school, chances of going onto higher education, more likely to avoid drug use, stronger relationships with their parents, and better health,” says Heidi McGlinnen AVP Community Engagement of Molina Healthcare of Michigan.

Heidi explains, “At Molina Healthcare, we share similar goals by working every day to reduce barriers to physical and behavioral health care for vulnerable populations. We are committed to working collaboratively with community-based organizations, like Affinity Mentoring, to create communities that are stronger, happier, and healthier.”

Mentor Center Ribbon Cutting at Godfrey-Lee ECC.

Affinity’s expansion to Godfrey-Lee Early Childhood Center was made possible with seed money from Steelcase Foundation, but it does not cover all of the costs. It is with continued support from individuals and organizations, like Molina and Dollar General, that the new site will be fully supported. [If you would like to help support, donate here.]

Approximately 30-40 new volunteers will be recruited, screened and trained in both mentoring and the fundamentals of early literacy. The volunteers will be matched with a student in Kindergarten, 1st or 2nd grade. The mentor will work in collaboration with the teacher and Site Coordinator to support the student in developing his/her literacy skills. The program will be evaluated by looking at number of matches involved, student achievement, student attendance and social emotional skill development.

Molina’s Story
Affinity Mentoring and Molina Healthcare share many of the same values and are both looking to make a positive impact in under-resourced communities. Molina’s mission is to provide quality health care to people receiving government assistance. Molina was created to fill a need in quality healthcare.

In 1980, emergency room physician, C. David Molina, MD, noticed that low-income, uninsured or non-English speaking patients were coming to the emergency room in need of general health care services. Without family doctors, they were not always getting the right care and information. These underserved families deserved better and Dr. Molina set out to do something about it. He opened a clinic in Long Beach, California to provide low-income individuals and families with a place to go to get personalized health care from Molina doctors. Now, nearly 40 years later Molina has over 3.5 million members and serves communities across the United States.

The Godfrey-Lee site is still in need of more support, you can help!

Sponsor a match with a small monthly gift
Become a partner or become a mentor
Donate supplies

Leading by Example: Mentor, Donor, Partner

Leading by Example | Board Member, Mentor, and Community Partner
By Rachel Lopez

Jason Loepp is a father of two young children. He and his wife, Heather, are from the East side of Michigan and lived in Tennessee for several years. In 2008 they moved back to Michigan to be closer to family, which is when Jason joined the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) team.

Leadership at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
Over the past 10 years Jason has worked his way up from Individual Contributor to Director of West MI/UP Customer Consulting and Reporting at BCBSM. He enjoys being an active member of the community and taking part in local events. One of those events was a “Friends of Burton” at Burton Elementary – which is where he was first introduced to Affinity Mentoring.

“Being a father of two kids – I understand homework and the extra need and push.” He instantly connected with Affinity Mentoring and the message resonated with him. “Hearing about the need tears at your heart. I came back to the office and drummed up more support. I recruited 4 or 5 more mentors.”

That was 4 years ago. The partnership between BCBSM and Affinity is growing stronger each year. This year 8 employees from BCBSM are volunteering weekly as mentors. “I’m a big believer in the program, I try to get as many people involved as possible,” says Jason. A large part of the growth is through word-of-mouth and employees returning from mentoring talking about their experience.

“People started getting involved in small events, like the Secret Santa Workshop, and I talk to my co-workers about mentoring. People want to get involved. It starts with one day, so what’s one hour per week?”

Weekly Mentoring
Jason, a mentor himself, has been working with Angel for the past 4 years. “We’re both competitive. We play a lot of Uno – but add math into it. The first one to get 100 points loses. I think I’m the proud reigning champion, but you can say he is. The first time he beat me he was so geeked,” chuckles Jason.

“I usually go on Friday mornings so I can be in my jeans and relaxed. We usually spend some time in the library and pick out a book. The last one he picked was about Abraham Lincoln, so I picked out an encyclopedia to see what else I could find about him. Then we talk about it more. I’m a nerd like that.”

Jason explains that Affinity aligns with many of his company’s values, “We like to do things that are athletic. It’s important to get kids out and active. BCBSM has a campaign to get kids active 60 minutes a day – if I can help get 20 minutes of those, that’s great. Angel loves soccer so we’ll sneak out onto the field to kick the ball around.”

Board Member
Jason wears many hats and is involved with Affinity at different levels – partner, mentor, and board member. “The people involved in Affinity’s leadership and their employees make a difference. They are there. It’s a hands on organization, in every level. They have a pulse on what’s going on,” comments Jason.

As a board member, he loves to get other people excited about the mission, share his experiences, and the personal benefits mentoring offers. “I think at work, it gives people from different areas of the company something in common. At home, it’s interesting that my mentee and son are both in 6th grade. It helps me make sure I’m holding my son accountable in his homework too.”

Community Partner
Jason has led the partnership between Affinity and BCBSM, they are big believers in mentoring and are in it for the long-haul, “As long as we’re here in GR we will always have people that want to mentor. To see the happiness of the kids – that’s what it’s all about. We are going to support local organizations that make a profound impact on children and Affinity does that. We’d like to get two more mentors each year.”

Not only do their employees donate their time, but the company also donates their “treasure.” As a partner, BCBSM has committed to covering half of the cost of each of their employees’ mentor match ($600 per match). “[Mentoring] is not free – the cost of supporting a match for a year. There’s a cost the run the program and we wanted to be able to support, not just the talent, but the time and treasure. We’d like other organizations to also donate their time, talent, and treasure. These kids are our future so let’s invest in them now,” says Jason.

—

If you’re interested in learning more, check out our Mentorship Opportunities and Community Partnerships.

Affinity Welcomes Newest Partner, Chemical Bank

We’d like to welcome our newest community partner and sustainer, Chemical Bank! Chemical Bank recently donated $1,000 to Affinity Mentoring to support our mentor matches with the resources needed to be successful!

Our community partnerships are essential to our success! This year we aim to serve 280 students across our 3 sites. Supporting one mentor and their student costs $1,200 each year (includes recruitment, screening, training, and onsite support from highly qualified staff).

We know that high quality mentoring works and we are committed to providing every student with a caring adult mentor that we can. Support our work, like Chemical Bank, and become a Community Partner >
—
Questions? Contact Rachel Lopez at rlopez@affinitymentoring.org or 616-406-3967