Image courtesy of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

Volunteer-based tutoring and mentoring programs all over the country are now recruiting volunteers for the 2010-11 school year. In Chicago the Tutor/Mentor Connection is hosting a Tutor/Mentor Jam concert on Sunday, Aug. 29. The web site is http://www.tutormentorjam.org . Tickets are still available.
 

Youth Mentoring ListServe created by Dr. David DuBois - http://listserv.uic.edu/archives/youthmentoring.html. 
To join, email: <YOUTHMENTORING@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>

Conferences where youth leaders can connect - http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Other-Conferences

Tutor/Mentor Leadership and Networking Conference:  http://www.tutormentorconference.org
The T/MC has hosted a conference in Chicago every six months since May 1994. Visit the web site to see speakers and presentations from the May 2010 conference. As soon as we have a date and location for November 2010, it will be posted.  We're looking for volunteers, and donors, to help with the T/MC conferences.  Call 312-492-9614 to offer help.
  

Below are some categories of information in the Tutor/Mentor Connection web site. This is information that can be used by non profit leaders, volunteers, donors, business leaders, etc.  To see an outline of the Information on the T/MC web site view the animated presentation at http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Resources-Map
 

Image courtesy of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

As you start your 2010-11 school year, I encourage you to include these articles in  your thinking:

The Charitable-Giving Divide - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html?_r=3

Civic engagement and volunteering is the new hybrid health club for the 21st century -
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro/factoids.htm

Converting volunteers into leaders.
*  Blog article - http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/10/transforming-adults-involved-in.html
*  Animated version of article - http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/chicagoland-volunteer-recruitment

As we look for ways to engage volunteers in tutor/mentor programs, how many are thinking of ways to transform those volunteers into leaders who will do much more, over many years, to help the youth in your program reach their adult potential, and become future tutors/mentors and program support leaders themselves?  Can volunteer-involvement help create empathy, that motivates the wealthy to do more to help those less fortunate?  The Civic Enterprise study of Big Brothers Big Sisters, titled "Untapped Potential", suggests this is possible.

Volunteer involvement has many benefits to the volunteer, the companies where they work, and to the community.  If we can educate our volunteers to carry this message to their own friends, family and co-workers, we can create a constantly expanding flow of needed resources to schools, non-school programs, and youth and families living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods throughout the USA and the world.

If we find ways to connect volunteers from multiple programs, and multiple cities, with each other, and on-line learning, such as provided by the Tutor/Mentor Connection library, we can do more to make this happen, than if each program remains a silo, trying to do everything on their own.

I hope you'll read more of my ideas on the http://tutormentor.blogspot.com blog and join me in on-line forums where we can talk about these ideas and find ways we can make these ideas a reality in more places.

Good luck to everyone as you start the 2010-11 school year.  We have much to do, and too few resources to do it well.