Reaching New Heights

Mentoring within the Greater Waco Education Alliance

            The Greater Waco Education Alliance is urging community members and parishioners to become mentors by helping to educate parents on the importance of having a positive influence in their child’s life.  In the latest issue of the Executive Director’s Report, Virginia DuPuy, head of the Greater Waco Education Alliance, focused on mentoring.  The most recent accomplishments include the recruiting of 64 mentors who are being matched to students in the new partnership with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program at J.H. Hines Elementary and other schools.  The majority of these mentors are Baylor University Students.  Libby West, a sophomore at Baylor, says, “I am looking forward to being paired with a child and being able to hang out with them every week.”

Photo Credit: Maddie Gregory

Bree Lancaster, Member of Kappa Alpha Theta, pushes a local Waco elementary school student during the King's Club after-school program.

The Alliance has also met with mentoring program directors of: 

• Communities in Schools (CIS) 
• Leadership Education and Development (LEAD)
• Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) and
• Kids Hope 

as well as others interested in supporting mentoring efforts, including Alice Starr, Poverty Solutions Staff and Baylor Social Work Interns.  The directors identified the strengths, challenges, and unique characteristics of each program.  The mentoring program’s immediate goal is to recruit mentors through marketing. The long range goal is to share organizations' strengths, structures and best practices.  “So many people are wanting to make a difference for the students in our schools . . . and this can be a relatively easy way to get connected and do something really important for a child,” said DuPuy, who is also a former mayor of Waco.  According to studies, the mentoring efforts will help to reduce teen pregnancies, drop out rates, and the number of children who enter the criminal justice system.

“Those are all expensive for the community. It costs a lot of money to keep someone in jail; it costs a lot of money when the state is, in essence, supporting someone who had a child at 15.  If you really want to talk about being fiscally conservative with our resources, mentoring is one of the best ways to do that.” -- Doug McDurham, Director of Communities in Schools.  

            On behalf of supporting the mentoring efforts in the greater Waco community, the Epsilon Epsilon chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta at Baylor University has also started an after-school mentoring program called King’s Club.  Baylor students meet with children from local Waco schools near the main thoroughfare of12th Street and La Salle Avenue every week to build relationships on a playground, in a friendly environment.   Allie Crowder says, “I love getting the opportunity to spend time serving the children of the Waco community.  The time spent with my Theta sisters and the adorable children is priceless.” The Greater Waco Education Alliance along with many other organizations are working together to improve the mentoring efforts in young children's lives throughout the city of Waco.