Wanted: A few good mentors

BCYMP has a waiting list of youth seeking mentors

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BROOKINGS – Like the United States Marine Corps, the Brookings County Youth Mentoring Program (BCYMP) is looking for a few good men – and women – for a challenging mission: “ … one-on-one mentoring efforts … to ensure all youth in the community have the guidance and support of a caring, stable adult. The mentor relationship is intended to empower youth to reach their full potential as contributing individuals in their communities.”

The BCYMP is a one-on-one, community-based youth mentoring program open to all K-12 students in Brookings County. 

There are currently 61 students, 42 of them boys, waiting for mentors. Several mentors are sharing their BCYMP experiences, hoping to encourage Brookings County adults to participate in the program.

Always wanted to do more

“I didn’t know this program existed when I first moved to Brookings,” said Adam Holtquist, a State Farm Insurance agent. “I’d heard of 1 Million Cups.”

At one of those Wednesday-morning coffee gatherings at the Children’s Museum of South Dakota that brings together “creators, artists, entrepreneurs and business owners to gather and share ideas,” he met Darla Biel, BCYMP executive director. He’s been a mentor since about January of this year.

“I’d always wanted to do more,” Holtquist said. For him as a mentor, it meant “meeting somebody new, hanging out and getting to know each other and finding out what he likes to do.”

Now he meets once a week with Colby Halsey, his mentee, an eighth-grader at Mickelson Middle School. One of their first outings was bowling.

“We go to a movie, play basketball, play baseball, play a video game,” Halsey said. He and Holtquist recently went to see “Jurassic World.”

For Holtquist it also meant “taking time away from my work to focus on more important things: people.” 

While there’s a fun element to their mentor-mentee relationship, there’s also the opportunity for some practical life lessons. He brought Halsey to his office and introduced him to his employees.

“We went grocery shopping a couple months ago. I kind of educated him on healthy shopping and what that looks like,” Holtquist said. Halsey helped Holtquist cook spinach and chicken and thinks he’s a good cook.

They have built some competitiveness into their baseball and basketball: Halsey leads 3-1 in basketball and 1-0 in baseball. He’s a fan of both the Vikings and Twins.

“It’s a great program,” Holtquist said of BCYMP. “I think we all want to do more. It’s just finding the time for doing it. Caring means a lot; but turning caring into doing is the big one. 

“It sounds cheesy. I didn’t do that until State Farm came out with their own commercial talking about those burdens that we all go through. Do we help veterans? Do we help dogs for shelters? Do we help kids in need? There are so many things we can do.”

‘Doing life together’

Mary Jo Minor, president of Mills Property Management in Brookings, has had the unique experience of mentoring two sisters, Taelyn and Talyssa Caya. She first mentored Taelyn, the older of the sisters, because Talyssa already had a mentor; however, sometimes Talyssa would come along.

Talyssa came into the BCYMP when she was a third-grader. She and her mentor, Carol Wineridge, met once a week and frequently made supper, which Talyssa took home to her family. Wineridge died when Talyssa was in sixth or seventh grade. She’s now 17 and a senior at Brookings High School. Taelyn recently graduated and is headed to college.

When Minor got into the program, she knew Taelyn and Talyssa, because they lived in a property that Mills managed. She’s known the two sisters since they were first- and second-graders.

While mentoring them, she sometimes took them to church and Bible study.

“I think that it’s an amazing program,” Minor said. “For me it’s a long-term investment. I wouldn’t trade my relationship with Talyssa and Taelyn for the world.

“We’ve developed more than a mentor relationship. Everybody does it for different reasons. There’s such a blessing on both sides of that fence,” Minor added.

“You just want more people to sign up. And it can be that one hour a week, and that’s great; or it can be more. We have more. We’ve been through lots of stuff.

“Now I consider myself their family friends. They’ve been to our house. I know their dad and sisters and now a new step-mom. We’re involved in each others’ lives forever now,” Minor said.

A family affair

Husband-and-wife team Andy and Brianna Schulz are somewhat newcomers to BCYMP. The Schulzes moved to Brookings in December 2017. In April of this year they attended a BCYMP promotional event at the Old Sanctuary and signed on to be mentors.

“It wasn’t even a hard decision after that,” Brianna said. “It was something that intrigued us, and we both wanted to do it.”

Brianna is just getting started and has been mentoring Sophia Casper, 13, for a couple weeks. Over time they will work out a schedule of activities. She met her mentee and her mother and learned about her siblings. “Sophia’s turning 14 on Aug. 2,” Brianna said. “I told her my birthday is Aug. 3, and we’re going to eat birthday cake together.”

As people consider becoming mentors, the time element is something they often consider. The Schulzes are busy raising their own family and yet they’ve found the time and dedication to become mentors. The South Dakota natives – he’s from Philip, she’s from Chester – have been married for five years. They have a 2-year-old girl, Olivia, and an 8-month-old boy, Avery.

“The big hanging point that we’ve heard about from people who haven’t done it yet but have considered the idea of being a mentor was the commitment to meet with that child at least once a week,” Andy said.

Rather than approach their mentoring roles as separate set-aside times with their mentees, Andy and Brianna are melding mentoring into their already busy and active lives.

“It’s not a matter of setting aside an hour a week,” he explained. “It’s just including someone else in what we’re already doing in a week. It’s very doable.”

Andy’s been mentoring Levi Murray, 12 years old and a student at Mickelson Middle School, for just over two months. He began by having school lunch with him. After “a couple of weeks like that, just to learn the ropes,” they moved on to such activities as bicycling at Dakota Nature Park and going to softball games where Andy plays in a league. 

Andy noted that the mentoring program also offers a lot of ideas about activities that can be done in the mentoring process. 

“They offer coupons and you get activity passes to the Brookings Bobcats sporting events. There’s just a ton of ways that they offer that can help make mentoring easier.”

Additional information about all aspects of the BCYMP, including volunteering to be a mentor, may be found by calling 697-0444 or logging on to bcymentoring.org.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

Register photo: Mentee Colby Halsey and mentor Adam Holtquist enjoy a game of H-O-R-S-E at the Southside Park basketball court on Wednesday afternoon. As part of the Brookings County Youth Mentoring Program, they spend at least an hour a week together, and basketball is one of their favorite activities.