[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 158 (Tuesday, October 27, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7542-S7543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         RECOGNIZING MENTOR: THE NATIONAL MENTORING PARTNERSHIP

  Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, today I would like to recognize MENTOR: 
The National Mentoring Partnership, the leadership of its founders, 
Geoffrey T. Boisi and Raymond G. Chambers, and the expansion of the 
mentoring field in the past quarter century.
  This year, MENTOR celebrates its 25th anniversary. Its founders, 
Geoffrey T. Boisi and Raymond G. Chambers, were leading businessmen and 
philanthropists who understood the value of mentoring in their own 
lives. They believed passionately that the intervention of a caring 
adult is a critical element in the life of a young person, and they 
believed that every young person needs and deserves a powerful 
relationship that supports their growth and gives them the opportunity 
for success.
  In 1990, Boisi and Chambers recognized the powerful impact that 
mentoring could have on our Nation's at-risk youth, and they started a 
movement to increase opportunity for all young people by establishing 
MENTOR. The success of Boisi's and Chambers' efforts has been 
remarkable. That first year, approximately 300,000 youth at risk of 
falling off track were paired with a caring adult through a structured 
mentoring program. Today, 4.5 million at-risk young people will find

[[Page S7543]]

the support that they need in a mentoring relationship while growing 
up.
  We know that research has found that young people with a mentor are 
55 percent more likely to attend college and more than twice as likely 
to say that they held a leadership position in a club or sports team 
than young people without mentors. We also know that people who are 
mentored in their youth are 78 percent more likely to volunteer in 
their communities than those who are not mentored.
  Unfortunately, despite the tremendous growth of the mentoring 
movement in America over the past 25 years, 1 in 3 young people, 
including 9 million at-risk youth, will still reach adulthood without 
having a mentor of any kind. This mentoring gap isolates these young 
people from the meaningful connections to adults that would help them 
to grow and succeed. Furthermore, young people are not the only ones 
who gain from a mentoring relationship. While mentoring empowers our 
children and sets them on the path to success, it also deeply enriches 
the lives of the adults who are partnered with them. As a mentor 
myself, I can attest to this profound benefit.
  MENTOR has been a leader in the development of best practices to 
assist mentoring organizations across the country in improving their 
program quality. MENTOR and its network of affiliate Mentoring 
Partnerships has set the bar for quality in practice and has 
strengthened the mentoring field's capacity to deliver on the promise 
of mentoring.
  It is clear that, in the last quarter century, MENTOR, under the 
leadership of its volunteer board and founders, has done tremendous 
work championing the advancement of mentoring practice and fostering 
the growth of the mentoring movement. Therefore, I ask that my 
colleagues join me in recognizing the accomplishments of this 
remarkable organization in expanding the quality and availability of 
mentoring for all young people in the United States, in honoring the 
service and leadership of MENTOR cofounders Geoffrey T. Boisi and 
Raymond G. Chambers and their dedication to America's youth, and in 
encouraging Americans to discover just how rewarding mentoring can be 
through volunteering with their local mentoring organization.

                          ____________________