And good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It is time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust. We're talking to the Young Scholars of Bartellsville and we have Deanna Cameron and George Hockey it is here with us today and I got to tell you, folks, it's great to have you on board.
A little chilly in here, a little bit, but we're here to get.
Everybody's attention today because we need some mentors, don't.
We We absolutely do.
We are a strong scholarship mentor program and probably one of our biggest needs right now is going to be mentors. We have five students that are looking for mentors to help them guide this guide them on this path to college.
Woh my goodness. Now, George, you're no stranger to mentorship. You know a little bit about this, that's correct.
I've been involved with Young Scholars of Bartellville so almost since the beginning of the program.
Wow.
But and how I got involved was I was involved. I've been involved with Big Brothers, Big Sisters and which partners with Young Scholars of Bartlefield. That's where we do the front end of the mentoring and so we work together.
It's always great to have collaborators.
Yes, and so, and that's that's where my involvement began. And I now serve on the Board of Young Scholars of Bartlefield and so that's where I'm helping and trying to find mentors. And you know, I said, it's very important that relationship of having a mentor working with our youngsters is extremely important.
Oh it is.
It's always nice to have someone, you know, kind of helping me blaze that trail. And with young scholars, this is what it's all about. It's it's about finding your way.
It is a lot of these students are going to be first generation college students and so you know, looking for the guidance, the steps to take, being prepared so when they get there they're successful. You know, college is a very different world and it can be very diff hard if you don't know what you're doing and what to expect. So the program helps them with that. We've got lots of classes that they go to, but the mentorships really help them with that.
You know.
It's it's kind of like being that little beacon, you know, carrying that way on the dark trail. For I remember being that youngster boy. What I would have loved to have had was a program like this right when I was going through it. But if we have it here and we need.
To take care of it, we really do. Now, how do we go about becoming a mentor choice.
Well, it's very easy.
Here we go.
Well, all I have to do is contact our office and just ask and let us know. And that's the other thing. You know, a lot of times people are a little fearful of being a mentor. They think, oh, no, it's going to take a lot of time or a lot of effort or whatever. No, we're talking about maybe an hour a week, maybe not even that. We're not talking about a lot of time. And it's basically it's you do whatever you normally do. Spend some time with
a youngster. You know, you mow your lawn, have your child you out there, mow the lawn with you.
Things of this nature.
Whatever you're doing, you're going out shopping, bring that child along to go shopping, because they observe what you're doing in normal life. You know, certainly if you can help them with their homework, Ah, that's beautiful. It is, you know, things of this nature. But the important thing is to observe you in your normal life and to be there to answer any questions that the youth have as they're going through, you know, the trials and tribulations being a you know, a youngster.
You know, being a youngster, it's it's the first time you're you're met with some forms of adversity and it's all because you just don't know, you just haven't experienced enough of life. And it's nice to have that extra set of eyes, ears, and that heart for carrying and sharing along the way too.
And our program does a really good job. We work with the students.
We do a lot of financial so we're preparing them for life as well.
That is and that is amazing we do.
We partner with Westside Community Center with a class called we Prosper that our kids go through, and that's like teaching etiquette, how to dress, how to talk, what silverware to use, you know, it's a whole lot more so we're just trying to prepare them for everything that life is going to throw them, you know, from the moment that you graduate from artistwol Public Schools and make sure that they're successful as they can be.
And we have a great graduation rate.
So we've seen the program really benefit the kids and they're coming out. We've got kids now that work at Phillip sixty six. We have a student that's a pilot now.
Yeah. So there's been a lot of success through the program.
Wow, goodness sakes, you know, and I just just knowing going back, I shared a little bit with Beyond about this being a kid, the hope of ever getting off the farm was pretty bleak.
And you know, you have a program.
Like this and suddenly that ray of hope gets to be a whole lot brighter in a big hurry it.
Yeah, yeah, you know, given that that's the beauty of the program. Uh. You know, a lot of our students like say, uh, this is the first time in their family that someone has graduated from college. And to do that and then become productive citizens in our community, become taxpayers is I always jokingly tell the kids, I said, I want you to be a taxpayer and don't pay my Social Security everyone.
Helped Georgia get his money.
Yeah and so uh but but you know, and as John said, uh, our success rate the kids that go through this program, it's over seventy eight percent graduate from college. Okay, this is the normal, normal kids you're talking about in the twenty percent, right, you know, and so you know, this is phenomenal success rate. So that's what we're very proud of. And so when we ask an individual to be a mentor, they're becoming part of this successful program.
And they become very proud also that they've become part of this program. And that's why we're out talking about, you know, and asking people to become mentors. And again I want to stress we're not asking you to, you know, walk on the moon. We're not asking you to to solve the world's problems. Where I just asking you spend a little bit of time and and work with the youth of our community and help them out. And and
it's not uh tremendous effort. And you believe me, when it's all said and done, you're going to have fun and you'll be very proud because you'll you'll look at that child, well, you'll look at that adult, and you'll look at that successful college graduate and say, I had a party.
That Ah, that's great.
Ye.
Now, we can't keep this a secret. So this is why we're doing this.
We're asking people, just like George said, take an hour out of your week and and just watch how this blossoms.
And.
Said they can easily call me at the office at Young Scholars at Bartlesfield.
They can go also to our website. There is a place.
Where they can fill out that they're interested in being a mentor. And then that comes to me and I'll reach out. I'll sit down and have coffee with you or whatever is convenient and kind of go over the program, talk a little bit.
More in detail.
But you know, we right now have five students that do not have mentors and that's extremely important for us to fill because for us to be able to open this up to even more students, we've got to fill the mentorships because we don't want to get to the point that we have so many kids that don't have mentors. Because the partnership is a huge part of the program.
We're really not going to stop at five. We now have ten or twenty, but right now, you know it, really.
I would like to have one hundred, but you know, I'll go with baby steps right now.
But where where can we find you on the world wide Web?
We are at Bartlespool scholars dot com. They're also welcome to stop buy We're in the RSU building in Suite eight twenty three, or they can give me a call and my number is nine one eight seven six six six six seven five.
Wow, you know what Young Scholars of Bartlesville. You guys went through a name change by we did?
We did?
And how long has a young Scholar has been around in various forms?
I believe since two thousand and six is the year that I've heard. Yes, I'm fairly new to the program myself, so I'm learning along with all.
Of you guys.
Well, this is great. So it's been around since two thousand and six, Yes, I knew, I've been here long for us.
Yeah, so we've had nineteen We've had nineteen kids go all the way through and graduate. We have sixteen currently in college. And then we currently right now have twenty four kids anywhere.
From sixth grade to twelfth grade.
So they can start applying for the program in sixth grade through tenth grade.
But they stay with us. They do quarterly classes.
We do a lot of volunteer I think that's very important, just like George gives up his time and many people in this community. I want to teach kids that you've got to be a volunteer. You've got to give back to the community you live in. World doesn't go around if we don't have volunteers.
That's true.
We saw that this weekend. Eleven hundred is what I heard. Yeah, this weekend.
That's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, it was something else.
I just need five. They needed eleven hundred. I just need five. Just need five.
Folk, give us a high part. That's all we ask.
It's all as you know. I've seen some of these youngsters in action.
I go back. I think it was a twenty twenty one.
We had a nine to eleven anniversary down at the Unity Square, right, those youngsters did the presentation along with some of the mentors. Oh wow, And I said, well that that's it.
This is the program to get behind.
It's a great program.
These are these are solid individuals who are mentors, but even more solid kids the right lath and they knew it.
The kids are exciting.
You want to talk.
About confidence when you see young people, they're not all not every young kid has got it.
Now these they had it yeah going on.
Yeah, I mean they've reached out, they've applied, they've gone through the interview process to be accepted, and I've spent a little bit of time with some of the kids, and they're excited, they're well spoken, they have goals, they have plans, they you know, they know what they want and they're just trying to figure out how to get there.
So just like the rest of us.
Still, so we're going to be the roadmaps.
Like that, we're the roadmaps.
Yeah, And as you said that, that's one of the things at the quarterly meetings, we have individuals that come in and one of the subjects was public speaking and working with the youth on how to be confident to get up and talk to others. And that was an example. We're talking about that event that we had about nine to eleven, and you know these sessions we have with West Side Community Center where they learn to how to present themselves with a job interview and things of this nature.
It's more that that's the what we want to convey to everyone. People a lot of times think of our program. Is they always hear the word scholarships. Yes, we give scholarships. The kids earned scholarships, no doubt about it. But the key word there is earn scholarships earn And what we do is we prepare our students to be successful in life. They're going to We're not. I always remember one of
our founders, very low. He reminded me every time when I said, our goal is to get our kids to go to college, and he said, no, cards it's to graduate from college. Well, no, it's to be successful in life. So not only to graduate from college, we want them to be successful. So what how do you how become successful? Well, you've got to learn all these skills, public speaking, how to present yourself, how to dress, how to do all of the proper things in life.
My goodness, and this is the that's the avenue. Yeah, and that's why we need the mentors. How do we find you again on the web.
We're at Bartlespiel scholars.
Dot com and your phone number nine seven sixty six sixty six seventy five.
Ladies and gentlemen, you've been watching and listening to our community Connection program right here on K one