{"id":30404,"date":"2025-05-20T00:09:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T00:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?post_type=blogpost&amp;p=30404"},"modified":"2025-05-20T00:09:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T00:09:51","slug":"project-spotlight-lets-appreciate-mentors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/project-spotlight-lets-appreciate-mentors\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Spotlight: Let&#8217;s Appreciate Mentors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>For our third challenge of the 2024-2025 program year, we partnered with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.center4success.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Center for Success Network\u00a0<\/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<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does it mean to feel truly seen? Our team set out to answer this through the lens of mentor appreciation with Center for Success. Guided by the prompt, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHow might we better ensure mentors feel valued and appreciated?\u201d<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> We designed milestone tools and meaningful events that honor the unique connections mentors build with students. From birthday boards and mentee thermometers to a Community Book Drive and Book Swap, every idea was inspired by what mentors, mentees, caregivers and CFSN said mattered most: witnessing student growth and feeling part of a shared journey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One mentor, Heather Storey, shared, \u201cAnyone who hasn\u2019t mentored a child yet should\u2026 so they can see how much it truly changes the child\u2019s life.\u201d That sentiment anchored our approach. Working alongside the passionate CFSN team liaisons Adrienne, Andrea, and Shanelle was amazing\u2014we felt a deep alignment between intention and impact. Their unwavering support reminded us that appreciation is not just a gesture, but a way to sustain community stewardship. Together, we created tools not just for recognition\u2014but for lasting inspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_30405\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30405\" class=\"wp-image-30405\" src=\"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/appreciate4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"712\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/appreciate4.png 936w, https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/appreciate4-232x300.png 232w, https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/appreciate4-791x1024.png 791w, https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/appreciate4-768x994.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-30405\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fellows: Reu\u2019el Richardson, Dana Anderson, Reem Rizk, Kaleeyse Martinez, Eman Azrak<\/p><\/div>\n<h4><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/shorts\/4Q2JZiD7E6M?feature=shared\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>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>****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For our third challenge of the 2024-2025 program year, we partnered with the\u00a0Center for Success Network\u00a0(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 [&hellip;]<\/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-30404","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\/30404","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=30404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30404\/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=30404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}