Something you should go Something you should know is brought to you by Genesis gooldr dot com. That is also something you should know. You can put your retirement plan on the gold standard. Genesis Gold Group is the only IRA back by physical gold and Silver. Learn more get a free gold and Silver guide at Genesis gooldr dot com. Excited a visit right now with Brianna with teammates, And first of all, I'm excited to chat with you. I've
gotten a chance to visit with a few times. And I was familiar with teammates because we used to live in Nebraska and that's where it originated. But I bet there's at least one or two people listening right now that are going teammates. What in the world is that? So, Brianna, let's talk a little bit about teammates and what you guys do in Suo Falls.
The Teammates Mentoring is a free, one to one school based mentoring program that matches a safe, caring adult with a young person. We work with kids who are in grade seconds through twelfth grade.
So if I become a mentor of like a second grader, would I have that same student in third grader? Or would I have a different second grader next year.
One of the things that Teammates apart is that we ask for a longer term commitment, so that helps the students know that you're going to be there the next year, and then you stay with them for as long as possible. Ideally it would be until graduation, but if for some reason that mentor could not continue, we would do everything we could to rematch that student as long as they wanted to stay in the program.
I love that, and this is a really great program and it's been around for many, many many years in Nebraska, and I'm excited that we have this now in South Dakota. And I'm on the website here teammates dot org if you want to check it out. And if you're listening from anywhere in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming. You guys have chapters all over the place. Now. The majority of the people are probably listening in the Sioux Falls area.
And again, if you talk to Brianna, she is the person that's in the coordinator executive director in this area. How many mentors could you use right now? Because you could use a few, couldn't you.
Yes, Currently we've got over forty students on the wait list. The minute we fill those if we had extra, go to the schools and we say we have mentors available, and they would say, we have kids. So that is something that is a big thing. There's a lot of people that need support. But I think one of the other wonderful things that I love about Teammates is that
it's a positive, strength based program. So when we do that intentional matching, we talk to the students about what they like, what their dreams are, what their hopes are, even if it's just something about anything they'd like to do in the future, and we try to find another adult who can match that. So, for example, if someone says, oh, gosh, I really love to be a police officer when I'm older, if there's a police officer available, I'd love to be
able to connect them. So it's like an authentic connection. They have something in common. Yeah, they also like basketball and like to play uno. But you know, it's just whenever we can honor that, it's a really great way to keep it positive and that helps the relationship persevere over time.
If somebody listening is going, hey, I would love to become a mentor, going to tell them how they can become a mentor here in just a second. But also if somebody listening is going, I love this program. It sounds like a great idea, but boy, I just don't have the time. There are other ways they can help as well. If they want to donate financially, that works as well, doesn't it.
Yes, we would love to have people donate. The national average goes with about four hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars to support one mentor men team match each year, and so that's a great way to donate. We also are always in need of four games that can be played by two people and card games Huno is the most popular. So anytime you want to pick up an
Uno deck and donate it, that would be appreciated. Or people can choose to help us, like by volunteering when we are out presenting at IT events, those kinds of things. We appreciate anyone to be involved.
Very nice. Now let's talk about becoming a mentor with teammates. What is the process, How does that work? And how do I get started?
What you do is you go to our website and so you can go to Like you had said before, teammates dot org. Right on the front page there it says become a mentor. Once you click on that, it's going to ask you to fill out an application, so
you need references. There's a background check. Once those references and background checks clear, then you go through an online training component that's self paced, and then you do an in person training and that's where we get to talk about what is the teammates mentoring focus, like when you're in person with your student how to be successful. And then you're ready to go and then we match you. So if you have any questions in that process, you can reach out to me. You can also reach out
to teammates directly. They can answer your general questions. But the best way to do it is to apply online and then we start that process for you.
I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat. And again I encourage people to check this out. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you again. If you'd like to know more, the website teammates dot org and there's different chapters all over the place. So again, if you're in Thought Falls, you would be on the Seoue Falls chapter. But click and see if this is available in your area. As well again at the website
teammates dot org. And Something you Should Know. Something you Should Know is brought to you by Genesisgoldra dot com. Put your retirement plan on the gold standard. Get a free gold and silver guide now at genesisgoldra dot com.