Mentoring Activities

What Mentors Do

Mentors are caring adults, usually students from UC Berkeley, who work one-on-one with students for a minimum of one year each. Every year, YSP recruits 50-100 volunteers who work with students at Willard Middle School to provide social, behavioral, and academic support. Each pair meets for three hours each week on a flexible schedule.

Mentoring runs from October through mid-December, and from February through the end of April.
YSP activities are centered around 5 key areas:
  • Mentoring and Leadership Development
  • Academic Support
  • Cultural Arts Awareness and Education
  • Civic Responsibility and Community Service
  • Family Engagement

By doing activities in each of these areas, mentors prepare young people to become community leaders and help them achieve academic, social, and behavioral success.

Mentoring and Leadership Development

The one-on-one nature of the mentoring relationship provides individualized support to students. Mentees are encouraged to jointly plan activities with their mentors and create a meet-up schedule, thus improving their organizational and leadership abilities.

After one year of working with a mentor, the number of mentees in our program who reported feeling self-confident jumped from 50% to 90%. Similarly, the number who felt able to set and work towards their goals increased from 60% to 90%. By acting as positive role models and developing leadership skills, mentors provide support for students trying new behaviors.

Academic Support

Mentors work with their mentees for one hour each week on school work. This may include homework help after school, sitting in on the mentee's classes, doing extra credit work, or developing skills.

After one year in the program, 75% of mentees reported that they had someone to hang out with and help them with their homework after school, and 80% believed they were good students.
Enrichment Classes: In addition to mentoring, any student at Willard can enroll in one of our after-school enrichment classes, which provide both extra support and honors-level courses. Our wonderful teachers offer math or English tutoring, promote a positive, friendly and encouraging learning environment, and provide consistent support to students in the form of regular after-school classes.

Cultural Arts Awareness and Education

Through program-wide activities as well as individual mentor-mentee outings, YSP provides opportunties for new and enriching experiences as well as community building and mentor-mentee bonding. YSP holds four program-wide events each year and offers tickets to happenings all around the Bay Area free of cost to students and their mentors through the Community Access Ticket Service (CATS). Mentors and mentees may also take field trips off campus after school, provided they have a signed parent permission slip.

YSP Events

  • Kick-Off BBQ: The Kick-Off Barbeque is the first event of the year in which the mentees meet their mentors for the first time. This fun event is really geared toward helping our matches develop a stronger relationship in a fun setting.

  • Halloween Party: As Halloween rolls around, mentors and mentees get to enjoy the annual YSP Halloween Party. The event includes music, candy, food treats, and all sorts of fun booths. From the mummy wrapping, to the trick-or-treat cake walk, this event is an awesome time for our participants to dress up and de-stress a little from the busy school year.

  • Holiday Party: At the end of the first semester YSP throws a Holiday Party. Here, mentors and mentees can celebrate the season together as they decorate candy canes, make crafts, and share in the excitement of the upcoming winter season.

  • Year-End Banquet: The Year-End Banquet is a special time in which mentors, mentees, funders, school staff, and YSP staff celebrate another great year. This event serves to really thank all the awesome mentors for their contributions throughout the year as well as showing our partners what we have accomplished. We also have a raffle for awesome prizes (gift certificates to luxury spas, nail salons, restaurants, and many more) and an award ceremony for the mentors and mentees.

  • Shadow Day: Shadow Day is an event that spans all of second-semester: it is an opportunity for the mentees to check out what the life of a college student is like for one day. On a day usually during the Willard Spring Break, mentees get to follow their mentor to classes, see what campus dining is like, and get a feel for the opportunities ahead in college.

Free CATS Tickets

The Community Access Ticket Service (CATS) is a non-profit organization that serves as a bridge between the social service community and hundreds of exciting cultural entities in the Bay Area. CATS provides underserved populations with free access to cultural venues such as museums, aquariums, fine art organizations, theatre performances, pro-sports games, and more. CATS partners with over 360 agencies to provide over 60,000 people the opportunity to enjoy different events.

Past Events Participants Have Attended:

* Raider's Games, Warrior's Games, A's Games, Giant's Games
* Rolling Stones Concert
* California Academy of Science
* Alcatraz Island
* The Nutcracker
* Smuin Ballet
* Monterey Bay Aquarium
* Disney on Ice
* ... the list goes on!

Community Service

Each year, YSP participates in a fall and spring community service project to sharpen students' leadership skills, teamwork, and sense of responsibility. This event also provides YSP staff, mentors, and mentees with an opportunity to have a positive impact in their community, address and meet relevant needs, and help our youth develop into more productive, confident individuals.

Sixty percent of our mentees have done community service, with 50% of all mentees volunteering once a year or more.

Past Community Service Events Include:

* Berkeley Project
* Berkeley Food and Housing Project
* Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS)
* Center for the Education of the Infant Deaf
* Halcyon Commons
* Tilden Park: East Bay Parks and Creation Services
* Hopalong Animal Rescue
* Saint Andres & Saint Paul Soup Kitchen
* Willard Garden Cleanups
* Children's Hospital
* Daily Bread Project
* East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse
* Emergency Food and Housing
* Schoolhouse Creek Common
* Senior Service Day
* Spiral Gardens
* Strawberry Creek Lodge
* Berkeley Marina
* ... and Many More!!

Family Engagement

Parents and guardians are an integral part of the YSP mission. They support the work of their children and their mentors and are invited to attend YSP's events throughout the year. Through family involvement in the program, YSP hopes to increase families' engagement in the Willard community and knowledge about school goings-on and events.

Ninety percent of our parents say they feel able to attend school events, compared to 70% of parents before entering the program. Parents overwhelmingly choose for their children to participate in YSP in order to work with a positive role model, have them learn about college, get help with school work, and engage in fun social activities.