Mentors matter

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 17, 2003

Nearly six years ago, Albert Lea’s Randy Kehr began mentoring for a young, shy junior high school student.

The boy barely spoke at all the first few times they met.

&uot;One of the first places we went to was the Renaissance Festival,&uot; Kehr remembered. &uot;He didn’t say a word to Ellen (Kehr’s wife) or me the whole way up.&uot;

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&uot;In the beginning it was hard to get him to say more than yes or no,&uot; he said.

But Kehr began to gain Justin’s, trust, and so began a lifelong friendship and a successful mentoring experience through the Community Mentoring Connection.

Children with difficulties learning, behaving in school, who don’t have a male or female role model in their lives, or who just need a friend are all cases seen in the mentoring program run by Karen Mehle, the coordinator for the program based out of the Albert Lea Workforce Development Center.

Mehle said that mentoring provides role models for children who need leadership, friendship, support or just someone to talk to.

She said data taken from both the local and national centers show that mentors help children become better students and, in the future, better people.

&uot;Success is hard to measure,&uot; Mehle said. &uot;But (the success) is like planting an acorn and helping it to grow into a great big oak tree.&uot;

Wednesday afternoon, a group of mentors and their &uot;mentees&uot; got together to clean up the shoreline along the channel between Fountain and Albert Lea lakes.

As the children were dropped off, many seemed excited to see their mentors. They stuck at each other’s sides, working together to pick up garbage along the ground.

Annie Mattson, a local school teacher, said she enjoys seeing the progress her mentee, Michael Nunez, 11, has made.

&uot;If feel I need to invest my time in helping kids,&uot; she said. &uot;I believe this is our future right here, and if you invest the time and effort, you will see it in the way they live.&uot;

Mattson has been mentoring for Michael and his brother since February.

Michael said he has had fun in the program.

&uot;We’ve been to the underground caves (in Lanesboro, Minn.),&uot; he said. &uot;We went golfing.&uot;

&uot;And he outdrove me after four holes of playing,&uot; Matton added.

After he took Michael to an Albert Lea High School Band concert, Mattson said he has taken an interest in learning a musical instrument. She also introduced him to tennis, a team the sixth-grader hopes to make in high school.

&uot;These are things he hadn’t thought of before,&uot; she said. &uot;I think I helped him to become interested in those things.&uot;

Mentors range in age, according to Mehle, from 16 to the mid ’70s.

Soon to be Albert Lea High School senior Tiffany Bratten said she learned about the program through the National Honor Society.

&uot;I like kids, so when I heard about the program, I knew it would be fun,&uot; she said.

She was out with seven-year-old Miranda Baseman.

Mehle said it can be hard getting past the first stage of shyness or standoffishness with mentees. But as Kehr said, it takes time.

&uot;I’m not quite sure when it happened,&uot; he said. &uot;But somewhere along the line he began to trust me.&uot;

As Kehr kept consistently visiting Justin, trust built itself.

Kehr taught Justin how to drive, Justin would come over for family holidays and they would go on trips together. The bonds became stronger and stronger.

&uot;It has developed almost into a family thing,&uot; Kehr said.

Justin’s mother, Barb, lives in Albert Lea. She was unavailable for comment, but Kehr said that she felt Justin needed a good, spiritual male role model in his life who would be able to speak with him one-on-one.

The mentoring seemed to be a great success.

The shy boy who had to take special needs classes switched into regular high school course work after he began high school. He learned how to drive and by the end of high school was on the honor roll. After graduation, he pursued a career in the Navy.

The two still speak at least twice a month.

&uot;The truth of the matter is that I probably benefited more than Justin did,&uot; Kehr said. &uot;To watch him grow was just very fulfilling to me.&uot;

To get more information on becoming a mentor call Karen at 379-3409.

(Contact Peter Cox at peter.cox@albertleatribune.com or 379-3439.)