5-2, Blog Exchange

5-2, Blog Exchange

Dan recently pointed out a Vermont mentoring program that cited our blog (and the Cabrini Connections main blog) as an example of what blogs can accomplish! The Three River Valley Regional Business Education Partnership mentoring programs creates diverse mentoring opportunities such as facilitating weekly lunches/meeting with mentors and youth, giving youth the chance to spend time with senior citizens, and matching mentors with juveniles who’ve committed crimes, to ensure that they get on the right path. Marie Gelineau, Executive Director, and her staff are publicizing their efforts to reach out on their new blog @ http://vtmentoring.blogspot.com/. We are thrilled to have a blog connection, and we’d like to share some of the great things that our blog has helped us to accomplish.

(1) Showcasing student work! Our group is of course 100% voluntary, and we’ve been amazed at the kids’ high level of enthusiasm! As we build a community, we’ve tried to create fun and meaningful activities for the kids….as we help them focus on different writing tasks, they’ve produced some amazing work. We’ve posted their work on the blog and talked to them about what it means when their work goes “public” (you can search their names on google and the blog shows up). This gives the kids a sense of accomplishment and encourages them to be more focused.

(2) Showing potential donators what we’re about! As we’ve reached out to the community and asked for donations, we always cite our blog! It helps give a “face” the kids’ efforts, as well as gives a sense of professionalism to our group. The more people that visit our blog, the more resources we can garner. We’ve written letters to newspapers and local restaurants and talked to anyone and everyone about our group! The blog is a tangible means of showing what we do.

(3) Creating connections with other mentors. The blog helps us create relationships and opens up communication lines with other mentors and volunteers (in Cabrini Connections and other mentoring programs). When face-to-face meetings and interactions aren’t possible, the blog indirectly opens up communication lines :).