CLEARLAKE — More than 30 of Lake County”s youth are waiting for mentors to help show them the way. Their names are on a waiting list for at-risk youth in need of mentors through Lake County Youth Services” (LCYS) One-On-One Mentoring program.
“Many of our youth live in one-parent households wherein the one parent may be having issues with addiction of some type, coping with poverty and extreme stress, dealing with grief and loneliness due to the loss of the other parent, or maybe working too many hours and in need of emotional respite,” writes One-On-One Mentoring Program Director Bea Garcia in a recent e-mail to the Record-Bee.
Formerly Big Brothers and Big Sisters (BBBS), the mentoring program became One-on-One Mentoring when BBBS merged with the Boys and Girls Club of America through the newly-formed LCYS, all under the umbrella of Lake County Community Action Agency.
Garcia explained that a change at the national level brought BBBS to an impasse that forced the Lake County chapter to close.
To meet new requirements, the organization would have had to maintain $200,000 in the bank, $50,000 for operating expenses and 276 children served, which translates to 10 percent of Lake County”s youth.
With a staff of two, one for the youth club just opened Aug. 1 under LCYS, and Garcia heading up the mentoring program, serving that many kids just wasn”t feasible, she explained.
Garcia told the Record-Bee recently that the mentoring program is trying two new approaches.
First, it”s trying to match up some of those 30-plus kids on its waiting list with local high school students who earn good grades and demonstrate good behavior in exchange for community service units.
The agency is also extending the One-On-One Mentoring to Family Mentoring, where an entire family would take a youth under its collective wing. Garcia says she believes the program will be beneficial for the youth and the family, and that it “will also provide assurance and support for volunteers who are hesitant about working alone with out youth.”
The original One-On-One program will also continue, said Garcia, “if it is desired and seems the best alternative.”
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com. To comment on this story or any others, look at the end of this story for “Comments,” fill in the web form, and the click “Publish”
