"Mentoring is increasingly considered one of the most effective ways to build up and salvage youth who lack significant adults in their lives. Mentors are adults who decide to join the life of a young person to guide them toward good decision-making and ultimate success in their lives. Today's mentors are taking the place of absent parents who are ineffective, too busy, have wandered away due to divorce or they simply display a lack of interets in their children...If volunteer mentors don't connect with children in need of significant adults who can guide them, children turn to other children [which can have disastrous results] to provide the organization and guidance they seek.

"Youth have a way of becoming what adults encourage them to be. Where adults are absent or not available, mentors act as a significant bridge builders. Mentoring requires patience, a willingness to listen and provide guidance to move the mentee toward healthy fulfillment as an individual. In our day, struggling youth are crying for answers for their lives...Youth want a mentoring connection to adults who will have interest in their welfare."
 

"Despite the cues that often came across initially, the vast majority of kids would respect a teacher much more if he or she demonstrated genuine, authentic caring concern and took the initiative to be an adult in their lives by providing boundaries, guidance, and direction."