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'The Best Feeling Ever' | Y's New Mentoring Program Links City Students With Working Professionals As Mentors

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The Workplace Mentoring Initiative is a program started by the Y in Central Maryland. It's designed to match workers from the corporate world with students in the Baltimore area.

"We partner corporate volunteers from that company with students from a local school," Derryck Fletcher, Vice President of the Y of Central Maryland said. "And they're matched together for a one to one mentoring relationship."

The matches are site-based. They meet at M&T Bank on Light Street twice a month. Dezman Anderson has been tutoring fourth-grade student Matthew Johnson for the past two years.

"Having that one on one interaction with my 'little' is the best feeling ever," Anderson said. "I get to know him personally. I feel like I'm making an impact on his life."

Mentor Beth McKinzie volunteers as a mentor at M&T Bank every two weeks.

"It's nice to have a mentor an adult to look up to," McKenzie said. "We do a little learning but most of it is fun."

Fletcher said the children are picked up at their school twice a month and brought to M&T Bank on Light Street.

"By the end of year one of that match, we see they are certainly more comfortable with one other. They've gone from acquaintances to just being friends, but by the time you get to the end of year three, we find they've become threaded into each other's lives," said Fletcher. "They begin to see each other as families."

The workplace mentoring program is a popular employee benefit for larger corporate offices around Baltimore.. Besides M&T Bank other companies involved include BGE, Legg Mason and T. Rowe Price. For more information about the program, you can go to www.ymaryland.org

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