{"id":30390,"date":"2025-05-19T23:54:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T23:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?post_type=blogpost&p=30390"},"modified":"2025-05-19T23:54:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T23:54:55","slug":"project-spotlight-mentor-outreach-nourishing-the-seeds-of-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/project-spotlight-mentor-outreach-nourishing-the-seeds-of-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Spotlight: Mentor Outreach: Nourishing the Seeds of Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

For our third challenge of the 2024-2025 program year, we partnered with the Center for Success Network <\/a>(CFSN), a nonprofit that unites literacy and community to empower students in the journey of education. Teams of Fellows created recommendations and tangible work products to expand mentorship through different aspects of the mentorship process.\u00a0 Fellows worked alongside Center for Success Network \u2013 Andrea Meyer, Heidi Miller, Ingrid White, Maddie Toro, Shanelle Mitchell, Tina Perkins and Adrianne Jackson\u00a0\u2013 as well as engaged with stakeholders, including mentors, board members, caregivers and youth. Learn more about the project from the Fellow perspective!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Working with Center For Success Network (CFSN) was an enlightening and moving experience. As the mentor outreach team, we looked at how to attract new mentors for the Center For Success Network, so they can reach their goal of 150 new mentors this year. Mentors are volunteers who take time out of their weeks to work one-on-one with students to increase their literacy skills. Attracting mentors is the first step in CFSN\u2019s process, so it was absolutely essential that we created tangible solutions to help CFSN move forward and reach their goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

We had the opportunity to work closely with Andrea, CFSN\u2019s Executive Director, who gave us insight into the mission and values of CFSN. Our eyes were opened to the extensive lifelong impact that literacy has on people – not only hindering a child\u2019s ability to read, but their ability to learn other subjects and complete tasks in day-to-day life. We also interviewed stakeholders who helped us understand how meaningful CFSN is to mentors, students, and partners. We were moved by the passion and emotion we heard from stakeholders which amplified the importance of increasing mentor numbers. Tina Perkins, CFSN\u2019s Literacy Program Manager, explained how mentors “start off helping someone else, but what [they] gain is so much more than [they] could imagine”. We were amazed to learn that mentors get as much out of CFSN as students do. After learning and experiencing CFSN, we realized that the best way for CFSN to grow mentor recruitment is to amplify what an incredible experience it is. We were honored to work with CFSN and create deliverables that we\u2019re truly proud of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Our team after presenting our final project. Jacob Diroff (Left), Tatiana Hull, Mandolyn Hanson, Jessica Aho, Ana Alvarez (right), and Zahra Basha (Not pictured).<\/p><\/div>\n

Get a glimpse of the project presentation where Fellows presented to our partners, their stakeholders, and host companies here.<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n

****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For our third challenge of the 2024-2025 program year, we partnered with the Center for Success Network (CFSN), a nonprofit that unites literacy and community to empower students in the journey of education. Teams of Fellows created recommendations and tangible work products to expand mentorship through different aspects of the mentorship process.\u00a0 Fellows worked alongside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":30391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,58,55,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-givedetroit","category-y13cfsn","category-y13challenges","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}