MMP 2012 Advocate of the Year

The "Advocate of the Year" award honors a business or organization that is committed to helping young people achieve their potential through mentoring. This year's Advocate of the Year award will be presented to the Kiewit Corporation employees who for more than a decade have been very active in supporting the TeamMates Mentoring Program. Hundreds of Kiewit employees have been involved over the years with 107 active mentors currently. To get this kind of company support, Kiewit sponsors an annual recruiting rally where Bruce Grewcock, President and CEO of Kiewit, talks to employees about becoming TeamMates mentors and the importance of mentoring. Kiewit also supports a "Take Your Mentee to Work Day", where the focus of the day is for mentees to spend time with their mentor during a work day. The TeamMates Mentoring Program was co-founded by Tom and Nancy Osborne in 1991. Presently, there are over 5,000 mentors across Nebraska and Iowa in over 100 chapters. TeamMates is a school-based, one-to-one mentoring program. Volunteers who wish to be TeamMates mentors are screened and trained before they are sent to be matched to an elementary, middle or high school student. Mentors spend about an hour a week with a student in a school during school hours. The commitment is for a minimum of one year with the goal of following the same student through high school graduation. A TeamMates mentor is a positive role model that gives a young person a sense of hope, purpose and vision. The Midlands Mentoring Partnership (MMP) is a 13-member collaboration designed to raise public awareness of and support for high-quality youth mentoring programs by improving youth mentoring through education, best practices and resource-sharing, increasing the capacity of mentoring programs in recruiting/retaining more mentors and carrying out recommendations made by the Building Bright Futures Task Force. Stable, caring adults are a cornerstone of positive child and youth development. Through positive relationships with adults, children and youth experience a sense of physical and emotional security and learn that they are valued and accepted by others. Research shows that mentoring can lead to a decrease in risky behaviors, stronger communication skills, leadership experiences, an increase in connectedness to school, an improvement in competencies and self-esteem. For more information, visit www.mmpomaha.org.