Getting Involved!

Sure the usual food drive, clothing and monetary donations are a great way to give back to the community. But what if there was some way that you could give back to the community while simultaneously molding the future of our society?

Look no further! PA eMentoring enables companies to give back to their communities by mentoring high school students from around the area. PA eMenotoring is an innovative and constructive way to benefit the community. Make your mark by getting involved with the mentor program by guiding students through interactive activities and sending encouraging messages and advice that will help them plan their future! Success is not only determined by what you have done for yourself, but also by what you have done for others.

This generation is our future and this is your chance to make a difference and leave your mark on the future of our society. The generation which is ready to embark on their future is sometimes referred to as the “lost generation.” PA eMentoring is one way that your company can help find this “lost generation” and help guide them with career goals in order to brighten their futures.

It only takes 20 minutes a week to make a difference in a student’s life. We encourage you to give back to the community and help this generation make their futures bright!

“Being closely tied to your community can give you a significant sense of yourself.”
Quote from a current PA eMentor

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PA eMentoring gets 500 eMentors!

The 500th eMentor has just joined the active Matching Pool this morning, March 9, 2011!! This is the first time we’ve hit this mark in our brief history. The more eMentors we have in the matching pool the more choices students have to choose an eMentor that they find most interesting. In the past 6 months, PA eMentoring has been recruiting mentors via two great online sites, Linked In and Google. The sign up rate from these two adds alone has proved to be successful. With at least 3 mentors a day signing up, we hope to hit close to 1000 eMentors by the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year!

“I’m so proud to be a part of PA eMentoring!!! Best thing I’ve ever done!!”

Thank you!!

Patricia A. Gambridge
Program Improvement Specialist
Career & Technical Education

Thanks to all of you who have enrolled with PA eMentoring!

PACTA Symposium Exhibit

We are meeting a lot of great educators in the Career and Tech Ed fields today! Looking forward to working with all of our new contacts.

Smart Futures attends School Counselor Conference

Smart Futures attended the Pennsylvania School Counselor Conference this week to educate school counselors on our career education programs. We met a number of counselors, new to Smart Futures and current users, that are interested in using our resources to help students “Get real! About who they are, where they want to go and how to get there.” Thank you to all of the wonderful counselors that will implement our programs to help students build successful futures.

Megan Palovsky; PA eMentor Testimonial Winner!

Congratulations to Megan Palovsky who was chosen to win the PA eMentoring Testimonial Competition.

Megan is an Account Coordinator for TrueSense Marketing where she coordinates and implements development strategies for non-profit organizations.

When Megan first heard of the PA eMentoring program she immediately thought “what do I have to offer high school students, I’m barely out of college myself and this is my first job- what do I know that they don’t?” After thinking about her choices she made after college, she decided she wanted to share with her mentees “some things I wish I had been told in high school to help better prepare myself for college and beyond”.

Megan was matched to three students during the PA eMentoring program and had three very different experiences. Once Megan began the activities, she not only felt her mentees enjoyed the activities, but she enjoyed and learned from the activities as well, “The activities not only showed the mentees the many options that were out there, but also gave me the opportunity to give them insight as a recent college grad about the massive amount of information and career choices available to them that wouldn’t normally be shown as options”.

Megan is still matched to two mentees who are finishing up their final activities in the program, “The only thing I wanted to gain from this experience was making a difference in one person’s life- even if it was giving them an option they wouldn’t normally give consideration to.”

Congratulations again to Megan Palovsky!

Belle Vernon High School students talk about PA eMentoring

Belle Vernon high school’s 10th grade students in a Personal Finance class are participating in the PA eMentoring program this school year. We had the chance to visit one of the several classes to ask the students and classroom teacher what they thought about PA eMentoring. 70 students have participated thus far and we are anticipating another 120 to begin the program within the next couple of weeks. Here is what they had to say! Belle Vernon high school students talk about PA eMentoring

Smart Futures at BMLDI Luncheon

On Saturday, October 9th our intern from Point Park University, Brittany Glaser represented Smart Futures at the BMLDI Luncheon. The luncheon was held at the August Wilson Center in Downtown Pittsburgh. Brittany teamed up with Chaz Kellem to talk about PA eMentoring. Brittany presented the young BMLDI members with information about the PA eMentoing program and how to become a mentee. There was also a brief segment for the older BMLDI members about becoming an eMentor. Chaz works for the Pittsburgh Pirates and is a mentor for the PA eMentoring program. He talked to the group about his experiences with the program and why it is rewarding for him. Overall, the presentation went really well. The attendants got to take home flyers, welcome pages, and eMentoring notebooks.

Pittsburgh, PA – Revolutionary “virtual” mentoring opportunity seeking working adults to serve as online career mentors to high school students

Q.  What can you do in just 15 minutes a week from your computer?    A.  Significantly impact a young person’s future

Want a way to give back to a young person but struggle to find the time?  A local non-profit Organization, Smart Futures, is offering a volunteer mentoring opportunity to local companies and their employees as a way to give back to the community while helping make kids aware of their organization, their industry, and their careers.

PA eMentoring (www.pa-ementor.org) is partnering with Pennsylvania-based companies to provide high school students with “virtual guidance counselors” and a structured online curriculum to help them do college and career planning in the classroom.  The key to the program’s success are the volunteer mentors who offer their time and practical experiences to help provide a “real world” perspective to kids.

“The eMentor volunteers drive the program and their time is valuable,” says David Mosey, a former educator who created the program, “so it’s important that the experience is fun, safe and easy for them.”

Please consider being an eMentor.   All occupations within companies are encouraged to participate.  Perfect candidates have experience in college or a career, access to a computer, 15 minutes a week to share, and a strong desire to give back.

Learn more and sign up to be an eMentor at www.pa-ementor.org.

Also…

In the news:  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10087/1045992-109.stm

See results:  http://www.smartfutures.org/resources_asp/files/Self_Esteem_Gains_Report_for_2009-10_final.pdf

PA eMentoring is supported by the following corporate partners: Highmark Healthy High Five Foundation, BNY Mellon Foundation, Duquesne Light, UPMC, and American Eagle, and also by The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Grable Foundation, and The Buhl Foundation.

Proven Success: Students Who Completed PA eMentoring Program Enjoy Better Self Esteem

Check out this great write-up about PA eMentoring’s proven positive impact on self-esteem from the Pittsburgh Regional Compact Quarterly!

 

Smart Futures - Logo

This year, as part of its relationship with Highmark Healthy High Five, an initiative of the Highmark Foundation, Pittsburgh Regional Compact Member Smart Futures participated in a data collection and analysis process to measure the affects of online career mentoring on the self esteem of high school-aged youths.  The results are positive and summarized below:

Data obtained from the pre- and post-self esteem surveys from 284 program participants during the 2009-10 academic year supported that the PA eMentoring program positively increased the self esteem of student participants. The results showed statistically significant improvements in self-esteem for students who completed the PA eMentoring program, as measured by a pre – and post-program self-esteem survey.  Additional data collected support that students participating in PA eMentoring have a better understanding of their own interests, preferences, and aptitudes, as well as a broader awareness of how these match to the work world and a better awareness and broader, more realistic understanding of post secondary opportunities in college and careers.

“These results support our belief in the positive impact having a realistic and appropriate college and career focus can have on young people at a critical time of their lives.  We thank the Highmark Foundation, for encouraging us to measure this impact on self esteem.  We also thank our other corporate sponsors who supported this program with both employees and dollars. They include BNY Mellon, NexTier Bank, Duquesne Light, UPMC and American Eagle Outfitters.  Finally, we thank our foundation supporters who are helping Smart Futures to introduce this program here in southwestern Pennsylvania. These sponsors include the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Buhl Foundation, the Grable Foundation and the Benedum Foundation (via IU1),” said Smart Futures Executive Director David J. Mosey.

Read the complete report
Laura Fisher – Publisher | Philip Cynar – Editor

The Pittsburgh Regional Compact is an employer-driven initiative collaboratively
sponsored by the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, business
leaders, educators, students, educational institutions and workforce development
organizations across the 10-county Pittsburgh region.

PA eMentoring Report 2009-2010 School Year

 

 

PA eMentoring Report for 2009-10 School Year:

The Positive Affects of Online Career Mentoring

on the Self-Esteem of High School Students

PA eMentoring Report Full Download 

Prepared By: Elisa Fioritto, Intern and Research Asst., Indiana University of Pennsylvania

David J. Mosey, Executive Director, Smart Futures

 This community report was sponsored by:

The Highmark Foundation