This week marks two milestones in Friends for Youth history as well as my own history with Friends for Youth. Last Saturday, we held our tenth annual Gap Portrait Day for Friendships. Darren Ferriera, a senior photographer with Gap, Inc., once again volunteered his services and the studio provided the space and equipment to create incredible portraits of our Senior and Junior Friends.
These images are not only important records for each Friendship but they also help us tell our story about the importance of mentoring relationships and how easy it is to be a mentor - can't you just see how much fun they're having together?Monday marked my own tenth anniversary working at Friends for Youth. In 2001, I was hired as a Program Coordinator and spent the next four years working directly with our Senior and Junior Friends, their families, and referral agents. Six years ago, I became Program Director for our Mentoring Institute, where I share what we've learned and combine it with the latest research and Best Practices, delivering webinars, resources, trainings, an annual mentoring conference, and coalition support to programs nationally and internationally.
I hope the photographs express the care, concern, hope, and connection each of our mentors and mentees share with each other. It's been my driving motivation for improving mentoring relationships in all programs for the past 10 years!
0 comments:
Post a Comment