Michigan Joins Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota & Nebraska in Coaches' Challenge for Mentoring

The National Mentoring Partnership has identified 15 million youth in need of a mentor. Each year, in an effort to help close the gap, the head football coaches from universities within Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska have issued a friendly challenge to see which state can recruit the most new mentors. This year, the challenge will be reinstated with two exciting new additions joining the efforts: the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota and Mentor Michigan.

Leading the Coaches’ Challenge efforts in partnership with Mentor Michigan is former University of Michigan Head Football Coach Lloyd Carr. Together, Coach Carr and Mentor Michigan will use the Coaches Challenges to recruit new mentors to serve Michigan youth by hosting various mentor recruitment events across the state during college football season.

The Coaches’ Challenge officially kicked off on August 1, 2013. Any new mentor applications received between August 1 and November 30, 2013 will count toward the “score” of the respective state. Football fans who take the Coaches’ Challenge will not only show their state pride, but by signing up to be a mentor, they will be making the difference of a lifetime by helping to improve the life of a child.

During the 2012 Coaches Challenge, the three states recruited more than 7,000 new mentors. With the addition of Michigan and Minnesota, the partnerships are hopeful to exceed this number and achieve the ultimate goal: serving more youth.

The overall winner of the 2013 “Coaches Mentoring Challenge” will be announced the week of December 13th. To join Coach Carr’s winning team by becoming a mentor to a young person in Michigan, visit www.mentormichigan.org.

The Teams

Iowa
As a project of Volunteer Iowa, The Iowa Mentoring Partnership is the state’s support organization for Iowa’s 80+ certified youth mentoring programs. Volunteer Iowa is proud to have the support of all three regents’ university football coaches and dozens of private college and high school coaches across the state; promoting the difference that a positive role model can make in a child’s life through mentoring. To find a certified mentoring program in your area and take the 2013 Coaches Challenge please visit www.volunteeriowa.org/coaches-challenge.

Kansas
Kansas Mentors is a statewide mentoring partnership that connects over 200 mentoring programs with each other and serves as a resource center for communities wishing to start a program.  Kansas Mentors works to promote the great mentoring opportunities found throughout the state and to find ways to recruit more Kansans to become part of these efforts. Kansas Mentors began as an initiative under former Governor Kathleen Sebelius and is currently led by Coach Bill Snyder.

Nebraska
TeamMates Mentoring Program, founded by Tom and Nancy Osborne, is a one-to-one school-based mentoring program with a mission to positively impact the world by inspiring youth to reach their full potential through mentoring. Mentors meet one hour per week at the school to provide support and encouragement to youth. There are currently over 100 TeamMates Chapters across Nebraska, Iowa, and California.

Minnesota
The Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota formed in 1994 as a community initiative to promote mentoring for Minnesota youth. The efforts of the organization translate into more caring adults mentoring a generation of children and youth at every level of our community. Due to hard work and great successes, the Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota is the driving force in the Minnesota mentoring movement and leads the state in building and sustaining quality mentoring for every child. The Partnership supports a network of more than 300 mentoring programs in Minnesota.

Michigan
Mentor Michigan supports nearly 250 organizations around the state that are changing lives by matching mentors with young people. Mentor Michigan provides those organizations with training and research. It fosters partnerships with businesses, faith-based and nonprofit organizations, schools, colleges and universities, and state and local government to support mentoring. Mentor Michigan also builds public awareness about the importance of and the need for mentors by urging caring adults to “Pass It On,” because sharing a little of yourself with a young person can reward both of you with lifelong benefits.

Join the Team! Be a Mentor! To find out more or to join the Coaches Challenge in another state, contact:

In Iowa: www.iowamentoring.org or call 1.800.308.5987
In Kansas: www.kansasmentors.org or call 1.785.368.6211
In Nebraska: www.teammates.org or call 1.402.390.8326
In Minnesota: www.mpmn.org or call 1.612.370.9180

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