Women Count by Susan Bulkeley Butler

Author:Susan Bulkeley Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781557535696
Publisher: Purdue University Press

A mentor changed her life, and now Erin Slater is changing the lives of others. Erin is CEO of College Mentors for Kids, a nonprofit organization that pairs kids in grades 1-8 with college student mentors who expose them to the opportunities that can come with higher education.

Erin lost her mother in a car accident when she was five. Her dad passed away when she was sixteen. By the time she finally graduated from high school (a little late, she would admit), she was a mess. Purdue University rejected her because of her grades. Her life was in shambles.

She began waiting tables at a restaurant and thought that maybe she would own a restaurant one day. And then a woman who had been a mentor in the College Mentors for Kids program came into her life. She convinced Erin to think about getting into school again. Erin went to a community college to complete the basic courses. She reapplied to Purdue, and this time, she got in.

During the mentoring program, the kids learn all about college buildings, living at school, professors, majors, and diplomas. They explore what they want to be and what they need to do to get into college—all of this by the time they graduate from the eighth grade. The result: They constantly talk about going to college, they see themselves as college students, they want to be like their mentors, and they have a different attitude about going to school.

The mentors themselves become rising leaders in the program and on campus. Stephanie, one mentor who was thinking about dropping out of college, decided to stay. How could she tell her buddies to go to college when she was not setting an example herself? Many become education majors, wanting to take their newfound teaching skills even further. Some join Teach for America, a program that enlists future leaders to be teachers for two years in the highest-need schools around the country.

Erin is “thinking big” about expanding the program because she knows the impact of College Mentors on the kids, the parents/guardians, their families, and their communities to a future they might never have known. Others, like Martha Stewart, know the difference that Erin is making. Erin was recently the winner of Martha Stewart’s 2009 Dreamers into Doers award.

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