Laughter and Support

Story written by Erin Zimmerman

For one year now, Zachary McFarlane, 33, and nine-year-old Tyrese spend time together each week. They play basketball, ride bikes and are recently tackling homework.

But more importantly, the two smile and laugh, and appreciate the simple things— something Zachary often finds refreshing. Tyrese reminds Zachary of the joy that innocent laughter and silliness can bring.

“It’s easy to forget how to laugh,” Zachary said.

For Zachary, childhood memories weren’t always that care-free. Seriousness had an all-too-familiar face when he was young. At 16, his dad died after a three-year battle with cancer.

““It was a pretty serious time,” Zachary said. “He was a good man, but going through that, I felt like I didn’t measure up; like I missed out on something. I was always seeking affirmation.”

Still, Zachary said he was fortunate. At the time of his father’s death, several family friends stepped in to help and offer their support. He said he was lucky to have some amazing men step in during such an impressionable time; he knew some day he would return the favor.

Feeling as though he still had some growing up to do, Zachary joined the Coast Guard after high school, where he served for eight years. The idea of becoming a mentor had always been in the back of his mind. Following his time in the Coast Guard, Zachary came to Colorado and attended University of Northern Colorado.

During that time, he met someone who was involved with Partners Mentoring Youth, and the timing was right, so he decided to become a mentor. Since then, he has had two Junior Partners and now works for the organization as the Community Relations Manager.

Through his Partnership with Tyrese, Zachary has found a rewarding friendship. From teaching Tyrese how to ride his bike to taking him on his first hike, Zachary has become a strong male role model that Tyrese can count on.

“Not having a dad around, no matter how it happens, brings a lot of the same problems and thought processes,” Zachary said.

Understanding this, Zachary is able to give the support that he knows can make a difference, even if it just means cheering Tyrese on at his sports games and practices. In return, Zachary has learned to live in the moment and has gained a new friend.

Plus, he now has a great excuse to watch all the new kids’ movies, he said with a chuckle.

“I’m pretty fortunate. He’s a great kid, and I want to hang out with him,” Zachary said. “To invest in someone and watch them grow, to see a kid look at you and smile because he knows you are there—those moments are worth any little amount of stress it causes me. It’s a good relationship and I hope it’s one I have with him for a very long time.”

Intentional Recreation

Jenna Van Fossen grew up just like many other kids. Having fun. She was fortunate enough to have a great family, good education, and a world of opportunity. Admittedly growing up as a bit of a tomboy, she spent most of her childhood days playing outside, never lacking in willing participants to run around and play games with.

Not wanting the fun to stop, Jenna eventually found her way to her career as a recreation therapist, which she has done for ten years, the last three and a half with the city of Fort Collins. It’s a career that allows her to use recreation to help people in a unique way, fittingly utilizing sports and games to expand people’s motor skills.

“I truly appreciate my childhood,” Jenna said. “And I’m so grateful for all of the opportunities I had. Which, later on in life, I feel has given me an awareness of what other people go through; that they may not have been as fortunate.”

Always looking for new people to have fun with, Jenna heard about the Partners Mentoring Youth program and knew it would be a good fit.

“After hearing about Partners, I figured that, hey, I’m single, and I have time… so why not?” Jenna said. “I went into the whole thing open-minded, really just wanting to take a kid out to have some fun and hang out with. One who maybe didn’t have that chance.”

After going through the screening process, she met eleven-year-old Star, who, over the last eleven months, has become one of Jenna’s new recreation buddies. While Jenna’s initial goal was just to give a kid someone to hang out and have fun with on a regular basis, the long-reaching impacts for them both are hard to ignore.

“When I first met her, she was a little awkward,” Jenna said. “She wouldn’t initiate physical activity, she would have problems with kids at school, and she just didn’t get to do a lot of the things that other little girls get to do. Like, really just being a little girl… getting to play and run around.”

And that’s where, utilizing her unique skill-set and passion for activity, Jenna has had the opportunity to broaden Star’s horizons. Most of their time is spent recreating around Fort Collins. Be it games, playing outside, going on hikes, eating and cooking, or going to work with Jenna, Star has had a chance to experience some of the day-to-day things that she was missing. And Jenna has seen the improvements.

“It’s been rewarding for me to see her grow,” Jenna said. “She has gone from that awkward little girl, into one who actually initiates activity. Something like hopscotch… months ago, she would have never done that. And now that is something we do regularly. She can just run around and be free. And, for me, it’s a good feeling to see that, through the activity, her motor skills have improved. Her interactions with other youth have improved. She’s physically, and emotionally, a different person.”

It’s in the simple things that Jenna enjoyed while she was growing up that she has found the most value; in the ability to give a little bit of her childhood experience to a girl who’s own life has been a little different.

Seeing Star benefit is a bonus.

“It’s no problem at all for me,” Jenna said. “I look forward to it every week. It just makes me happy, and gives me another person in my life. And I don’t see that ending any time soon.”

Being a Part of the Good

As a television reporter, Krista Watzel had become very familiar with the kinds of stories getting most of the attention. Trials. Shootings. Conspiracies. Every day, something negative. Something always seemed to overshadow the good stories the world had to offer.

“The news focuses so much on the negative,” Krista said. “A lot of times you’ll have press releases with amazing stories coming in from places like the non-profits, but they go to the bottom of the pile. You try to get them in on occasion, but they’re typically held for slow news days, which isn’t very often. There’s just always something else going on.”

Coupled with the negative stories, was the hustle and bustle of living the life of a reporter, and everything that came with it. Picking up everything at a moment’s notice to get the story. Working long, odd hours. Stressful work environments. She began noticing that certain things that were important to her, like the ability to volunteer, were bearing the brunt of her career.

After three years on the job, longing to slow down, Krista decided that it was time for a change. She sought something different. More personal.

“I started wanting to see the good stories in the world,” Krista said. “To really be a part of them.”

She quit her work as a reporter and decided to start her own business as a photographer; a change that has afforded her the ability to be more flexible. To invest time and energy in the things she finds important. Which, for Krista, usually centers on relationships.

And for just over one year, her newfound schedule has allowed Krista to build a special relationship with 11-year-old Amanda.

“An important thing to me in life is relationships,” Krista said. “To really have that relationship with someone is important. And I wanted to gain something from it, too. And that feeling in return is that this is a friendship that I expect to have for a very long time.”

It’s a relationship that has allowed Krista to not only see some of the good things in life, but to be a part of them.

“Laughing with Amanda is one of my favorite things,” Krista said. “It’s a whole different kind of laughter, because it’s based around someone far younger, who doesn’t have the stresses that I, as an adult, have. It’s a pure laughter that, unfortunately, I think we lose as we get older. Which can be sad, because we shouldn’t… but to have that brought back into my life, I feel very fortunate.”

By sharing time and laughter with Amanda, Krista has been able to see a little girl who has all of the potential in the world. And is no in a position to support and encourage her. To let Amanda know that, when her own life gets tough, busy, or out of control, she will always have an extra someone to lean on.

“I enjoy giving her the place to be the rock that she is,” Krista said. “But also giving her the knowledge to know that, if there is a time she doesn’t want to be that rock, that if something ever got bad, that she would have a person that she could call upon that’s totally removed from her family, because she does have a supportive and loving family… but she knows that she can call me up any time if she needs an extra outlet.”

Filling in the Gaps

Jerry Horvath had just been dropped off at the basketball court by his dad, Charles. After waving goodbye, Jerry began doing what most kids do at that age. Playing. By all nine-year-old accounts, a good day. But minutes later, as he dribbled the ball up the court, an unexplainable sadness set in, powerful enough to stop him dead in his tracks. As kids asked what was going on, he couldn’t shake the voice inside telling him that something horrible had just happened.

And that voice was right. As Jerry would find out in the coming hours, his father had suffered a massive heart attack right after dropping him off, dying instantly, and changing Jerry’s life forever.

“When that happens at such a young age, you feel abandoned,” Jerry said. “You go through all of these weird things, and try to rationalize the situation with a nine-year-old brain, and you end up drawing some wrong conclusions. But to you, those conclusions are facts, and just how things are.”

The world where his father encouraged and believed in him, watched and participated in all of his activities, was gone. It was replaced by one in which he questioned his own value of worth, where he learned how hard it was to grow up without the support his father had provided; an experience he hoped he could eventually help a youth experiencing a similar situation navigate through.

“The guys I looked up to when I grew up were the ones who did things with their kids,” Jerry said. “The adults who supported the kids in their life. I didn’t have that anymore, and wanted to grow up to be like that. To find out what’s important, what matters to them, and support them in that.”

For approximately one year, Jerry has had the opportunity to do that through his relationship with his 11-year-old Junior Partner, Alan. And that relationship has impacted them both.

“I know the difference of having the support and not having it. Being able to fill that gap was extremely important to me,” Jerry said. “I think more than anything, what Alan gets out of this is confidence. That he’s really worthy, and that a male adult looks at him as a valued kid. And I’m sure I’m getting more out of it than Alan, because it’s a role that I wanted fulfilled in my life. So, selfishly, I’m filling that gap on some level. You know, you can’t save the world, but you can help out by spending some time. And thankfully, Alan is the one I get to spend that time with.”

Mentoring: A Presidential Trend?

At Partners Mentoring Youth, we are well aware of the benefits of mentoring the youth in our community. We have come to see the effects first hand and really believe in what we are doing for our community. Now it seems that mentoring is a hot topic among the leaders of our nation. On Monday, Nov. 2, Michelle Obama launched a mentoring program for women in Washington D.C. The program intends to inspire sophomore and junior girls from public and private high schools across Washington, Maryland and Virginia by allowing them to network with accomplished, successful women.

We know that youth who have positive adult role models in their life tend to have increased self-esteem, academic achievement and more future-orientated thinking. Mrs. Obama understands this need in our society. Since becoming first lady, she said starting this program was one of her biggest goals. “It’s also about understanding that all of us have had challenges and bumps along the way, and to know that there’s just a level of moving through it that all of us have had to do,” she said.

What do the youth involved in the program have to do to be apart of this program? Mrs. Obama told the students. “When you get to this position in your life that you do the same thing for somebody else.”

Partners appreciates Mrs. Obama’s initiation on such an important issue. Some of the other women involved include advisers Valerie Jarrett and Melody Barnes as well as 16 other White House staffers. The White House says a similar program for boys will be launched soon.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/02/michelle-obama-launches-m_n_343009.html

The First Lady initiated a mentoring program for local high school girls.

ChiroCare holds a benefit for Partners Mentoring Youth!

Do you have plans this Saturday? How about a relaxing visit to ChiroCare!  Drs. Koepp, Ullom and Coleman are offering consultations, evaluation procedures and a follow up report related to any health care challenges for a $39 donation.  Not to mention that throughout the day there will be gift bags, mini massages and drawings every 30 minutes. Enter to win a one night stay at Embassy Suites Hotel and dinner on the town or two nights in a condo in Steamboat Springs, CO.

All the donations from this event will benefit Partners, so be sure to stop by and check it out! For more information, take a look at the flyer.

Partners Adopts School Based Mentoring

Keeping up with the needs of the youth in one’s community, as well as the national trends and research on the best ways to serve them, is an ongoing goal of any youth service provider. At a time when serving the number of youth in need of a mentor is increasingly challenging due to limited resources, Partners Mentoring Youth looks to partnerships in the community and creativity in programming to meet this challenge.

This fall, Partners is excited to serve more youth in our community through utilizing mentors in a school setting. According to MENTOR: Research in Action Series (2006), issue 6, as cited on mentoring.org, the mentoring field has seen unprecedented growth in the last 10 years. Much of that growth has occurred in the area of School Based Mentoring (SBM).          

This research article states that “School Based Mentoring is now the most common form of formal mentoring in the U.S., surpassing traditional community-based mentoring.” A more recent publication (2009) put out by mentoring.org highlights some SBM success stories as well as promising   programs. It explains that youth coming out of high-quality School Based Mentoring programs show positive improvement in the areas of school performance, attitudes and behavior, and peer relationships.

This information is exciting because it further qualifies the decision Partners has made to implement School Based Mentoring as a component of its services. This program was born through collaborative efforts between   Partners Mentoring Youth, Poudre School District and Colorado State University School of Social Work and is piloting this fall at Rocky Mountain High School. The hope is to eventually grow the program to other schools within the district in years to come, following best-practice recommendations in the area of SBM, but closely following an already existing and   successful SBM program run by the Route County Partners affiliate.

Partners is committed to continuing to serve youth in Larimer County through high-quality mentoring services, and is pleased to be working with partners in the school district to serve youth who might not otherwise  receive mentoring services. Partners is happy to grow services at a time when many are limited. The youth in our community deserve the opportunity to grow!

Ready, Set, GO! Running of the Bulls

 

Partners had a record turnout for Running of the Bulls this year! Nearly 300 runners and walkers participated to support Partners Mentoring Youth. The elk were bugling on the golf course during the race and the weather was fantastic. Thanks to the help of a dedicated Advisory Council, helpful Fort Collins staff, and enthusiastic race day volunteers, the event was a success. Final numbers aren’t in yet, but it is estimated that $10,400 was raised!

This little guy was thrilled to support Running of the Bulls!

Plans this weekend? How About the 5th Annual Running of the Bulls!

Join Partners in Estes Park this Saturday for the 5th Annual Running of the Bulls

Join Partners on Saturday, Sept. 26 for the 5th Annual Running of the Bulls. Starting and finishing at Lake Estes Marina, this gorgeous 3.75 mile run/walk course will take you around Lake Estes where you can take in the beautiful fall colors while your feet pound the pavement.  What better of an excuse to visit Estes Park while the trees are changing in the beautiful Rocky Mountains than for a good cause? This unique high-altitude course (7,600 ft.)  offers stunning views of the snow capped peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park . 

Children can participate in the FREE 1 mile run called the Junior stampede. 

Last year was a record number of participants raising $5,500 for Partners programs.
Visit our website for more information and to register for Saturday’s race.

This video was shot by Estes Park News for last year’s event, check it out!

 

Partners would also like to thank our sponsors for making this beautiful event happen!

          

Please Welcome Jill Homann to Partners!

Partners has a new Program Coordinator, Jill Homann.

Partners Mentoring Youth is pleased to introduce its new Program Coordinator for the Fort Collins office, Jill Homann.

As a Program Coordinator, Jill will provide support to the volunteers, youth and  families served through Partners’ one-to-one mentoring program. She is excited to use her experience to make a positive impact on youth in Larimer County. “At Partners I have an opportunity to work directly with the youth and their families, as well as the dedicated volunteers. It’s a unique experience to be able to work with both.”

Originally from Sturgis, S.D., Jill has been in and out of Fort Collins since 1997. After receiving both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Social Work from Colorado State University, she searched for an opportunity  to make an impact.

Prior to starting at Partners, she worked with Youth Wise in South Dakota, a diversion program focused on increasing graduation rates and reducing dropout rates amongst high school students. Most recently, she served as the Volunteer Coordinator for Denver Hospice.