Floyd mentors expand the world for youngsters
by Prufer
Sara Ayala and Emma have been best friends for nearly two years now. They share their likes and dislikes, hang out and are just there for each other.
“She’s nice,” says 11-year-old Emma, a fifth grader at Waccamaw Elementary School, when asked what she likes about her Coastal Carolina University mentor. “I tell her a lot of stuff, and if I have a problem, she gives me tips on how to solve it.”
Brandon Shaw and his 11-year-old mentee Savio have the same easy relationship. It is obvious that they both get a lot from their friendship, which began in the Dalton and Linda Floyd Family Mentoring Program, The goal of the program is to teach CCU students to become positive role models for children in South Carolina schools to help ensure their success in and out of the classroom. Mentors normally visit children at their schools each week during recess and lunch.
“I’ll be with him as long as he wants me around,” says Shaw. He is also in the Call Me Mister program at CCU, which means he’s headed for the classroom – fifth grade, to be precise -- as a teacher when he graduates. “I’m learning so much just hanging out with Savio,” says Shaw, who is in his second year of mentoring. “Teaching is all about building relationships with students, and being with Savio is helping me to open up.”
And the successes are apparent. Savio, who used to get into trouble and have to sit at a certain table in the cafeteria, has gone five weeks without an incident. “We’re working on manners and study habits,” says Shaw, who jokes around with the fifth grader like a big brother would.
Ayala and Shaw are examples of what the mentoring program is all about – matching up college students with children in need of a role model – to help guide them through the educational system with the goal of attending college.
Emma, who is bubbly and chatty with a bright smile, already has college in her sights, with plans to attend CCU, then go to Clemson for her veterinary science degree. Savio isn’t quite sure what his future holds, but he does enjoy coming to the Coastal campus every spring for the special day when the elementary mentees join their college friends for a day of hanging out. He especially loves the pizza and unlimited ice cream in Hicks Dining Hall.
Gail Dale, assistant principal at Waccamaw Elementary, started the mentoring program with Margene Willis in 2004 with one mentor in one fourth-grade classroom. Now there are 27 mentors in the school, and she wishes for more.
"The kids beg for mentors,” says Dale. “We try to pair them with children who might have some kind of need – not necessarily academics, but a child who has lost a parent or something like that, someone with a social need. It [the mentor program] is especially helpful with discipline problems. I have seen it work wonders.”
Since Waccamaw Elementary is a Title I school (most of the children qualify for free lunch and breakfast), “Our kids don’t always have the vision to think about college," says Dale. "But they come back from that field trip to the CCU campus and say, ‘I want to go to Coastal,’” says Dale.
The annual TEAL Youth Day: Talking Education and Learning will be held Friday, April 10, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the CCU campus. This year’s event is being sponsored by the Waccamaw Community Foundation, with additional funding from CCU’s Social Justice Research Initiative. This will allow nearly 240 students from 11 elementary and six middle schools from Horry County to attend.
The special day is hosted by at least 200 CCU student mentors as well as 50 volunteer students, faculty and staff members, and Chauncey, CCU's mascot. The event will feature a variety of activities that encourage students to succeed through education, science and artistic expression. Each student will also receive a new book and book bag to promote literacy and reading.
The Dalton and Linda Floyd Family Mentoring program is housed in CCU's Biddle Center for Teaching, Learning and Community Engagement within the Spadoni College of Education.
