FORT WORTH, Texas (ABP) — Joan Porter has 20 grandchildren, but after meeting 9-year-old Jasmin Sherman through Kids Hope USA, she was happy to make that 21.
“She calls me grandmother,” Porter said. “She says: ‘You’re not just a mentor to me. You’re more like a grandmother.’ My grandkids range from age 34 to 6 months. So I told her: ‘All right, I’ll be your grandmother.’”
Porter described Jasmin as independent and confident. They spend most of their time together each week at D. McRae Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, working on Jasmin's spelling and reading. Both skills have improved a lot since the two first started meeting.
Addison Cook may be in high school, but she finds time to meet with Laci each week in Weatherford, Texas.
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Kids Hope USA is a national mentoring program that equips churches to train and recruit mentors within their congregation to form one-to-one relationships with at-risk children in neighborhood schools.
Buckner International, a Texas Baptist-affiliated social-service agency, helps Kids Hope USA connect and identify interested churches with schools in their area. Buckner also helps support them through training, recruiting, screening and supervising each program.
When Christopher Welch, age 9, breaks his bike, he and his dad take it over to his Kids Hope USA mentor’s welding shop in Kaufman, Texas, for a quick repair. Roy Ferrell, 65, from First Baptist Church in Kaufman, began mentoring Welch when he was 8 years old. Somewhere along the mentoring process, they became friends.
“Christopher and I have made this pact that I’ll be his mentor through college,” Roy said during their weekly meeting at Monday Primary School in Kaufman. “After he’s too old to be in the Kids Hope USA program, we’ll keep being friends.”
When the two aren’t working on homework or reading during their weekly meetings, they play basketball or talk about handling peer pressure and how to respond to children who threaten to hit.
Eight-year-old Oscar Herrara likes to talk — about anything and everything. And Sabrina Sariles, his 27-year-old Kids Hope USA mentor at Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Fort Worth, always makes it a point to listen.
Oscar said his dad has a time-consuming job, and his mom is a busy woman. So, as much as they both love him, they aren’t always able to give him all of the attention he demands. But once a week, he gets an extra dose of attention from his mentor, a member of Iglesia Bautista Getsemani (Gethsemane Baptist Church) in Fort Worth.
“He is open to talking about his life, and I am able to affirm that even though his father has to work a lot, that he loves him,” Sariles said. “He’s always been very open and talkative with me, and he knows that he’s cared about here.”
The minute 8-year-old Laci sees her friend Addison Cook sitting in the lunchroom at Crockett Elementary School in Weatherford, Texas, she breaks into a run and greets her mentor with a hug. Addison, 16, has been visiting Laci for more than a year.
Addison and Laci attend church together each Sunday in Aledo, Texas, thanks to Addison’s mother, who provides transportation to students in the Kids Hope USA program.
“Laci comes every Sunday,” Addison said. “Her mom told me that the main reason she comes is because of me.”
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Analiz Gonzalez Schremmer and Jenny Pope write for Buckner International.
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