The three of us met in the early 1990s while working in the same office
at the University of Michigan. Together, we learned to do effective
education outreach for a National Science Foundation center there: at
first organizing tutoring, tours, and push-in classroom demonstrations,
which evolved to encompass preschool play groups, community center and
elementary school science clubs, summer science camps, career clubs,
youth task forces, academic and career mentoring, career fairs, and
summer research programs for teachers. We worked with many community
partners (schools, service organizations, churches, teen clubs, businesses)
in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Pontiac, and Detroit, and facilitated a broadbased
coalition to improve math-science literacy. When our sponsoring organization
reached its preplanned end in 2002, we founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
(Michigan Reach Out!)
and continued to recruit, train, and supervise mentors in Ann Arbor until
2010. Over those years, numerous state, community, and educational programs
adopted our holistic mentoring model, using the training materials
(comprehensive orientation and ongoing workshops) that we developed, refined
and freely gave away. We have spent the past year turning the most important parts
of that training into a book and journal to help anyone reach the level of
self-understanding and maturity we expected of our committed mentors. We
have pilot-tested this format with a summer youth career training group
and a single-moms ministry, where it was equally well received.
Read Some Personal Background on Your Retreat Leaders
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