New Vincent Village Mentoring Program

Here is a message from another great organization in Fort Wayne looking to create a mentoring program. If you’re interested in building a long-term relationship with a family in crisis, this is a great opportunity for you to provide some stability and for your faith to grow by joining a family for a year.

Dear Community Members,

Vincent Village is announcing a new program to connect the families we serve with volunteer mentors. In case you or one of your friends or family members is looking for a personal way to make a difference, we wanted to share this opportunity to directly impact our families’ lives for the better.

Low-income families face enormous stresses. The pressure can severely disrupt family life and lead to homelessness. Our Family Promise Mentoring Program is designed to help families overcome these stresses and to prevent homelessness.

A mentor is trained to offer both practical and emotional support by helping to:

• • recognize and appreciate the family’s unique strengths
  • define and set goals and action steps
  • encourage family members to take action toward their goals
  • review progress regularly
  • provide a link to the larger community by identifying and locating community resources
  • celebrate each achievement along the way

We are looking for mentors who have gifts of time, caring, and an interest in people to commit to getting together with a family regularly for at least one year, to offer support, affirmation, and guidance as that family looks to build a better future.  The estimated time commitment is about 10 hours/month.

On August 29, 2009, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, we will offer the first training to be a part of the Family Promise Mentoring Program.  This training will provide the background information and specific tools needed to form and maintain meaningful mentor relationships.  We are very excited that Ellen Latimore, the national trainer for Family Promise will be coming in to do this first training.

We hope you will consider sharing with others this exciting new program to help families move forward on the journey to self-sufficiency, and maybe even joining in yourself!  This is one program where each person who gets involved will get to really connect with another person.  To get involved, please contact Carla Kilgore, Program Director, at 456-4172*230 or ckilgore@vincentvillage.org.