Providing a helping hand in the community is something that the Volunteer Center strives to accomplish. With its new Community Mentor Program, the group has the opportunity to do just that.

“My own goal was if I could reach one kid, if I could help somebody, even just one person, I’d feel like it was a tremendous success,” said Mark Huismann, mentor at the Volunteer Center. “That was my experience, but it was better than I really hoped it would be.”

The Community Mentor program is a partnership with LaFollette High School. This program started in July 2010 when the College and Career Transitions department started working with the Volunteer Center on bringing a mentor program to fruition at Madison Area Technical College.

The school needed to forge a relationship with a high school that was willing to allow volunteers to come during the school day to hang out with the students. With the college’s strong past relationship with LaFollette, the partnership was forged between the two schools in little time andLaFollette was willing to allow volunteers to come during the school day. By second semester, the program was up and going with four student volunteers spending time with students from LaFollette.

This mentoring program allows both the high school student and the volunteer to learn outside the classroom, said Jason Wiedenhoeft, Volunteer Center advisor.

The mentor and the student can go out to lunch and talk or just simply hang out. It is also suggested that the mentor introduce the college environment to help prepare the high-schoolers for college. The volunteer can help guide the high school student with problems just by simply listening and being the outside support system the student may lack.

“Some people can be very shy and some people will open up to you immediately and that was the most surprising part of it — how readily some of these people just open up and start telling you their life story,” Huismann said. “The way I figure it’s just because they have someone listening for the first time.”

During the mentoring process, the mentor may help others, but they may help themselves as well. They may provide a learning experience outside the classroom, Wiedenhoeft said.  It also is fulfilling for the volunteer mentors.

After Huismann mentored a LaFollette student last semester, that student requested that he be paired with Huismann again.

“That’s really gratifying,” Huismann said. “You feel like you made a difference and really that is what I wanted to do.”

Coming to a college can be a huge transition for high school seniors going to college for the first time, even to a tech college such as Madison College. This program can provide an opportunity to lessen the burden, said Hannah Storck, head of the Volunteer Center board. This program is meant to provide mentoring for students entering the transition to secondary education and the pressures it creates whether its potential career decisions or just moving onto the next level itself.

“It’s a huge step and a lot of students don’t take that step right away,” Wiedenhoeft said. “I think sometimes the high schools could use help from outside the high school in that process. The best help we can provide the high schools is to send our own students out there.”

Storck was a graduate of LaFollette in 2008 and did not immediately attend college. Storck was a mentor and met with one young girl about once a week.

“It was kinda strange going back to the high school I graduated from,” Storck said. “It made me think of what I would I have done differently if there was a program like this with my education after high school if we had a program like this.”

The Volunteer Center is looking to expand to go to other high schools in Madison. However, the organization needs more people. It officially only had two volunteers committed as of Oct. 19. The center needs more people to allow the ambition of expanding to other high schools a reality.

Requirements for becoming a student mentor

• Fill out application on Volunteer Center website at http://matcmadison.edu/volunteer-center

• Complete an orientation session

• Pass a background check with Madison Metropolitan School District

• Commit at least once during a weekly or bi-weekly period for 1-2 hours

• Attend regular mentoring meetings with the Volunteer Center

The next Community Mentor Program orientation sessions occur Nov. 4 and Dec. 2 at 8 a.m.