Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
School District 55 is seeking volunteers to serve in the lunch buddy mentoring program in its elementary schools.
“Our numbers have been low last year and this for mentors,” Joan Pappin said.
Pappin said the lunch buddy program is the district’s latest effort to provide mentoring help for students. During the first two years, the district had plenty of lunch buddies, she said, but not so now.
District mentors are trained and served by the nonprofit Oregon Mentors program, which supports hundreds of mentoring programs throughout the state, Pappin said. They give districts guidelines for their programs along with background checks and fingerprinting through donations, often by large businesses.
The lunch buddy program is once a week for volunteers, she said. The mentor, after passing a background check and fingerprinting, goes to the child’s school for lunch and then lunch recess once a week, about 40 minutes a week.
Counselors at the schools determine which children can use a mentor, she said.
“They’re usually just kids in need of solid, positive adult role model,” Pappin said. “Most kids and mentors have said it’s a great experience. Sometimes I think it’s a better experience for the mentor because they learn the value of just being there for a kid.”
The majority of the mentors have been high school students, Pappin said. They often take their own lunch period and spend it with an elementary student.
“It raises the kids to something of celebrity status (for the mentored student),” Pappin said. “The whole table becomes an extension of the mentee.”
Many of the high school students doing this are already considering careers in teaching and interested in education, Pappin said. At least one reported that putting the lunch buddy program on his resume helped him get a job.
Academic success comes out of the program too, she said. “Some of these kids never get a compliment, and some just need to be acknowledged for coming to school.”
“They’re not there to change the kid,” Pappin said. “They’re there just to be with the kid, friendship without a cost.”
The program results in better peer relationships and attendance improves. Many of these students have attendance problems until they are paired with a lunch buddy.
Hawthorne School Counselor Georgetta Howard can attest to that.
It makes the children feel special to have someone who cares, Howard said. It gives them somebody to talk to, gives somebody they can talk about whatever. The kids that have had lunch buddies, it helps them a lot. It makes them feel special. The kids that start to feel better on the inside get along with other people.”
When that happens, they’re more apt to get better grades, she said.
Howard has one student, Jennie Johnson, she said she would especially like to pair up with a mentor. In this case, the student, adopted by her grandparents, recently had her father pass away and is now being reared by her mother.
Howard has a special request in this case, she said. She would like a mentor who can play piano and teach the girl.
“She wants to learn how to play so badly,” but resources for lessons are nonexistent, Howard said. This lunch buddy would be a special case in which Howard wants the mentor to spend time with the student after hours, to provide that chance.
“Her brother is a beautiful concert violinist at the junior high,” Howard said. “They could play together, maybe.”
“I had a lunch buddy last year, but she graduated so I only got to see her for one day,” Jennie, 11, said. She enjoyed having a lunch buddy and looks forward to having another one “because they’re fun to do activities with.”
Her eyes lit up when she heard Howard was looking for someone who could play the piano.
“I have had to teach myself over the last five years,” Jennie said, but she’s not sure what to do with the pedals and wants to learn more about chords.
She said she actually writes her own music after learning about notes from her brother, Bobby.
“Most of the time, I just play it by ear,” Jennie said. Both she and her brother love classical music, and she especially enjoys Beethoven and Mozart.
She also enjoys writing stories and photography. She likes reading too, including fiction, fairy tales, tall tales and realistic fiction. Her favorite books are Inkhart and Inkspell, and she is a computer nut. She especially enjoys her Nancy Drew computer game.
When she gets home from school, she takes care of her rabbits and chickens and often disappears to her bedroom to read.
In school she loves math and writing. Math problem solving involves both as students work over story problems.
With a lunch buddy, she expects “to have fun” talking about music and books.
For more information or to volunteer, call 367-7114 to reach Pappin.