Lunch Buddies at Charleston County Schools
Lunch Buddies takes place at various schools throughout Charleston County. Mentors go to school to eat lunch with their mentees. Mentors must bring or purchase their own lunches. After lunch mentors and mentees can spend time together on the playground, in the library, or in the classroom. Program details vary slightly by location.
Commitment: at least twice per month, preferred once per week
*Be A Mentor is always recruiting local workplaces to take part in our “Business Buddies” component of Lunch Buddies. Business Buddies are groups of mentors from the same workplace who adopt a school and help to support the Lunch Buddies program at their school. Business Buddy partners are required to provide at least 5 mentors from their business, as well as a small financial contribution. Benefits of this program include extra support for schools and a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie among coworkers.
Locations: North Charleston- Chicora Elementary, Mary Ford Elementary, North Charleston Elementary, Memminger Elementary, James Simmons Elementary, Pepperhill Elementary School Downtown- Sanders Clyde Elementary, Meeting Street Academy
West Ashley- St. Andrews Math and Science Elementary
AS Kids of The Outreach Learning Center at St. Matthew’s
Students in grades K-8 come from local downtown schools to find help and support with their homework. Reading skills are stressed daily as well as math and organization skills to improve their school success. Homework is followed by a daily enrichment activity ranging from art and computer class to community service and reading improvement.
Location: Downtown, across from Marion Square on King Street. We are within the gates of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church and are connected to the Francis Marion Parking Garage.
Commitment: Students are here Monday-Thursday from 3:15-5:45pm. Need tutors who are willing to commit to once a week for one semester.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Carolina Youth Development Center
In Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Carolina Youth Development Center’s school based programs, Bigs spend time each week with a child at a local school playing games, reading books, shooting some hoops on the playground, or participating in some other activity that the Big and the Little enjoy. It is all about taking time out to have fun with a child during the day!
Location: Boulder Bluff, Goodwin, Memminger, and North Charleston Elementary schools
Commitment: one hour per week
Chicora Elementary School Communications Mentoring
The goal of this program is to expose students to positive role-models who they can associate with a future career path.
5th grade students in groups of 3 work alongside Communications Mentors in order to create a “Communications” product for an area non-profit. Possible products include: posters, radio ads, TV ads, billboard designs, or T-shirt designs.
Mentors must be from a communications background. Mentors facilitate the process for creating the communication product and assist with the oversight of student work to ensure that it is high quality.
Commitment: Mentors will meet with students during the students’ Communication Class period, once a week from 10:30-11:15 AM. Session I takes place from January-March and Session II takes place from March-May.
Location: Chicora Elementary School, 1912 Success Avenue, North Charleston, SC 29405
Virtues in Practice (of Youth Empowerment Services)
Virtues in Practice (VIP)© is a character-building program for adolescent and teenage girls. Girls from Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester Counties are invited to become a part of the year-long program. Group facilitators and mentors will meet with the girls twice per month at the Midland Park Ministry Center. Girls are matched 1 on 1 with a mentor who attends the bi-weekly meetings. The program curriculum includes age-appropriate guidance in the areas of friendship, love and dating, self-respect, communication, entrepreneurship, anger management, goal setting, decision making, drug abuse, physical fitness, nutrition, AIDS and STDs, etc.
Commitment: 2 x per month, usually Thursday evenings
Location:
Midland Park Ministry Center
2427 Midland Park Road
North Charleston, SC, 29406
Wings for Kids, Inc.
WINGS is an education program that teaches kids how to behave well, make good decisions and build healthy relationships. They do this by weaving a comprehensive social and emotional learning curriculum into a fresh and fun after school program. Kids get the life lessons they need to succeed and be happy and they get a safe place to call home after school.
Wings mentors help serve as tutors during WINGS for kids after school program’s Academic Time, helping students who are at great risk of academic failure. Academic Time consists of 10-12 students most of whom have the same school day teacher. These kids and one WINGSLeader (College-age counselor) are assigned a classroom to use for the entire year to complete their homework. The goal of Academic Time is for all kids to complete all of their homework while getting assistance when they need it.
Commitment: Academic Time ranges from 4:15 – 6:30 pm. Flexible scheduling.
Location: at four schools located in the North Charleston area – Memminger Elementary School, Chicora School of Communications, North Charleston Elementary School, and James Simons Elementary School.
Communities In Schools of Charleston (CIS)
Communities In Schools of Charleston (CIS) is a dropout prevention program serving nearly 6,400 at-risk children in 15 Charleston County and 2 Berkeley County schools. Our nationally accredited nonprofit organization surrounds students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. As part of our program, CIS matches volunteer mentors and tutors from the community with students in the schools we serve. Our mentor programs range from the CIS “Lunch Bunch” in our elementary schools to one-on-one academic and career mentoring in our middle and high schools. The type of program is dependent on the school.
Commitment: 1x per week for 1 hour throughout the school year; times vary, but most opportunities take place during the school day
Location: Charleston County-Baptist Hill Middle/High, Burke Middle/High, Clark Academy, Frierson Elementary, Haut Gap Middle, North Charleston High, Northwoods Middle, St. Johns High, Jane Edwards Elementary, Lincoln Middle/High, Mary Ford Elementary, Memminger Elementary, North Charleston Elementary, Sixth Grade Academy, Stall High
Berkeley County: St. Stephen Elementary, St. Stephen Middle
One Book at a Time
Looking for mentors interested in literacy for high school students.
The objective of this program is to prepare below-level readers for post-secondary education that are attending one of four area high schools. By helping these students overcome their reading deficiencies, we hope to impact these students in every aspect of their adult life. They should be able to comprehend texts for all purposes- for pleasure reading, reading textbooks for college, or using technical manuals and informational documents for work.
There are three components to the program for the students:
1) five reading strategy courses offered to groups of between15 and 20 struggling readers selected by their school or placed by application into the course
2) upper undergraduate and graduate level education majors from The Citadel, College of Charleston, and Charleston Southern University who will interact with the students in the classroom as teaching assistants giving one-on-one and small group instruction while gaining valuable classroom experience, and
*3) volunteer mentors from the community to assist in the Mentor Program for Reading
The mentor program, tagged “One Book at a Time”, will allow the students a chance to read books and material of their choice along with a mentor without the pressures of a classroom assignment. We will need to match each student with a mentor (around 100 total) and will welcome mentors from a variety of businesses and community organizations. Books will be short in length so as not to overtax the student or the mentor with time-consuming texts. This mentor will meet with the student at the school once every two weeks for an hour to discuss the reading material and to get to know the student.
Through issues in the books and personal discussions between student and mentor, we hope to place positive role models in each student’s life that can help the student to understand the importance of good reading skills.
The schedule for the Spring Semester 2012 is as follows:
Mondays
Stall High School: 11:19 – 12:06
1/23/12 : Get to know each other and small take-home item to read due to short time between sessions
1/30/12 : Discuss take-home item and distribute 1st book to mentors
2/13/12 : Continue as normal with new books each session
2/27/12
3/12/12
3/26/12
Tuesdays
Military Magnet Academy: 9:45 – 10:25
1/17/12 : Get to know each other and distribute 1st book to mentors
1/31/12
2/14/12
2/28/12
3/13/12
3/27/12
Berkeley High School: 12:57 – 1:49
1/24/12 : Get to know each other and distribute 1st book to mentors
2/7/12
2/21/12
3/6/12
3/20/12
4/3/12
Wednesdays
Goose Creek High School: 9:42 – 10:42
1/18/12 : Get to know each other and distribute 1st book to mentors
2/1/12
2/15/12
2/29/12
3/14/12
4/4/12