Northview — When Caitlyn Cardosa was called to the main office at Crossroads Middle School, the then-sixth-grader assumed the worst.
Instead, the 2012 Northview High graduate learned she had been matched with a dedicated mentor, who she would by then come to call her “second mom.”
It was a bond built in weekly, 15-minute increments.
“I had no idea what I was stepping into,” said Nan Dykema, who learned about the mentor program at her church.
“She was definitely scoping me out the whole first year,” Dykema recalled, gesturing across her dining room table recently at Cardosa. “You were so skeptical about everybody. You didn’t have a whole lot of trust back then.”
Dykema admitted surprise after the first year that Cardosa had asked to continue.
“I didn’t know if there had been much of a connection,” Dykema said. “But she wanted me to come back.”
Cardosa wrote an essay while in high school about her relationship with Dykema that would earn her the first of a handful of scholarships. She recalled in the essay how “(Dykema) had the most sincere sound about her tone of voice that was almost too hard for me to cope with; I had experienced so many rough journeys in my days.”
Cardosa said she was struck by the feeling Dykema truly listened to her; she realized it first when Dykema showed up to a mentoring session with knitting supplies and taught her how, having taken note when Cardosa told her she wanted to learn.
Over time and through their regular, brief visits, Cardosa wrote, “Nan made me feel as if I had a significant place in this world. … The more time we spent together, the more Nan molded a special place in my heart.”
Cardosa and Dykema are just one of thousands of mentor-mentee pairs from Northview Public Schools over the program’s now 20-year history.
‘When people from the village share a tiny portion of their lives with a young, unsuspecting teenager, the results can literally be life-changing.’
— Sarah Gammans, counseling office director, Northview High School
15 Minutes, Once a Week
The Northview Mentor Program got its start in 2005, when longtime parent volunteer Janine Conway sat in on a meeting with one school principal and assistant principal to brainstorm ways adults could make a positive impact on middle-school students.
Her own child having recently moved up to high school, “I was done making cookies and bulletin board displays, but still wanted to have an impact,” Conway recalled.
School officials were in the process of trying to meet for 15 minutes every week with 25 students they had identified as the most at risk of being unengaged academically, socially or otherwise.
To minimize the obvious strain on administrator time, Conway proposed trying to get 25 community members to volunteer those 15 minutes a week. Within six months, 60 people had signed up to mentor.
At its height, the program had about 250 mentor-mentee pairs. Since the COVID-19 pandemic school building shutdown, the program has consistently had more than 200 pairs every school year, and there are always students on a waiting list.
Interested parents fill out a permission slip for their interested student, and the district counselors and the mentor program take it from there. All meetings between mentors and mentees take place on school grounds, and the district requires everyone who will be in buildings regularly to pass a background check.
“It’s the consistency, the keeping your word, and the simply showing up that is crucial,” said Conway, now the program’s official coordinator for the district. “And when you stay with that student for five, six, seven years, it’s huge. The connection grows, and the connection gets deeper.
“It’s so simple, but amazingly effective.”
Admiration Goes Both Ways
Northview graduate Alex Owens has been on both sides of the mentor-mentee relationship. He came to understand how valuable it was to him as a student. Now, he understands how valuable it is to him as an adult.
In 2018, when he was in eighth grade, he was “super outgoing, but I didn’t know how to control it,” he recalled. The resulting behavior issues were affecting his learning.
Having a mentor “was just an outlet to put some of my thoughts out there. I just got to be myself. … even if I didn’t see the real benefit (back then) to a relationship with someone who was older, to share some of my life with someone who wasn’t my parents or my teachers, somebody who I could trust and know I wasn’t going to be judged.”
After graduation, Owens kept in touch with his former middle-school counselor Lindsay Haveman, now a Northview High guidance counselor he calls “my own professional mentor.” She suggested he take on the role that so benefitted him.
Now 21 and a senior at Kuiper College majoring in social work, “I know how to pick up on body language and social cues. I’m just super passionate about giving back; I understand the mentors I had gave a lot; I want to return the favor to someone who needs that same help.
“I love this stuff. I love being in the mix of things. I get my energy interacting with people, pouring into people and making sure people feel supported.”
Nan Dykema agrees.
“(Cardosa) has brought so much to both of us,” she said, referring to her husband, John, who walked Cardosa down the aisle at her 2016 wedding. “She’s the daughter I thought I’d never have.”
The Dykemas and the Cardosas — now parents of two — are still close, and Nan has had three other mentees since.
Small But Consistent Investment, Immeasurable Rewards
The Northview Mentor Program is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It operates on $20,000 a year, from which it pays Conway, the part-time coordinator, and assistant Chantil DeWitt. Some of the funding goes toward supplies for Conway to train other school districts to start their own mentoring programs.
One-third of the operating budget comes from the district; the remainder is from donations from the program’s own board officers and mentors, local businesses and others in the community.
‘I understand the mentors I had gave a lot; I want to return the favor to someone who needs that same help.’
— Alex Owens, former mentee and current mentor
The investment of time, however, is what has made Northview’s mentor program endure.
“From the top down, Northview has buy-in,” Conway explained. “Every superintendent and the majority of our administrative staff since the program began have been mentors.”
Sarah Gammans wears two hats when it comes to the mentor program. As head of the high school’s counseling office, she has seen how it impacts students. She has also seen it as a mentor since the program began.
“I don’t know what some of our students would have done without the consistency of their mentor, year after year,” Gammans said. “As counselors, we have seen the difference it has made, both academically and emotionally, for our students, and the mentor support has often translated into successful high school completion.
“As they say, ‘it takes a village,’ and when people from the village share a tiny portion of their lives with a young, unsuspecting teenager, the results can literally be life-changing, and we have seen it happen at Northview High School.”
Learn more and find out how to get involved.
Read more from Northview:
• Mentor program empowers students & adults alike
• 15 minutes once a week can make a big difference
