Mentors or Celebrities?

I went to spend time with my new school-based mentee at Faison Primary School in Homewood on Monday afternoon.  When I made my way up the second floor where his classroom is located to pick him up, his classmates were all standing in line in the hallway to go downstairs to the library.  Several of the kids saw me coming from a ways out, and they started yelling, "Your mentee's not here today!"  I figured they were probably right, but I kept walking down the hallway just so I could speak to his teacher to confirm that he was absent.  Sure enough, he was out that day.  As I was having that brief conversation with the teacher, several of the kids in line started jumping up and down, waving their arms and saying "Ooh... Ooh... pick me... pick me Mr. Bryan... I'll go with you today!"  Some of the kids got out of line to get my attention to show me how bad they wanted to go with me.  It was kind of funny trying to talk to the teacher with kids pulling on my arms and waiving their hands in my face trying to get my attention.  I am just building a new relationship with this particular mentee, and I didn't want to cause any problems between he and I by spending the day with one of the other kids in has class.  So I politely declined the pleas of the other kids, and I told the teacher to tell my mentee I came and that I would be back to see him next Monday.  As I walked away I heard kids in the class making desperate appeals for me to come back and spend time with them.

This experience does not just happen to me.  It happens often to nearly every person that mentors children in the primary school in Homewood.  The word has gotten out over the past five years that many of the kids have mentors, and we do not have nearly enough mentors to match with all of the kids who actually want a mentor.  So the mentors who go consistently are often treated like celebrities, and kids who do not have mentors try many different approaches to try to get people to take an interest in them.  My big dream for LAMP is that we would be able to provide a mentor for every child that goes to school in Homewood.  I know that involves hundreds of children, but there are thousands of adults that attend LAMP churches.  Wouldn't it be incredible if the roles were reversed some day?  What if every kid in Homewood had a mentor, and adults from Pittsburgh-area churches were actually eagerly waiting to be matched with a child?  Imagine a situation where a line of students quietly walked down a hallway and there were adults lined up, jumping up and down, waiving their arms, getting in kids' faces and yelling, "Ooh... Ooh... pick me... pick me... I'll mentor you today!"  Who knows... maybe that dream will become a reality some day?  There are a lot of people and organizations focusing their attention on the kids in Homewood these days.  Wouldn't it be great if all of the kids were treated like celebrities by an overwhelming number of adults who were involved in their education?