Volunteer Work

Boys & Girls Club of Alton

At the Boys & Girls Club of Alton, my research group focused on mentoring high school-aged students. Since our research group was partnered with the NCNW (National Council of Negro Women), we decided we wanted to focus our own research on mentoring. Every week, we would meet with the students for two hours to go over what we had planned for the day. We would mostly focus on preparing them for life after high school. We decided to focus on this because we thought of what we would want when we were in high school. We would work on five-year plans, financial advice, as well as college advice for anyone curious. Through this experience, we also gained adaptability skills. Since attendance was never required for the students, each day we would have a different number. This would require us to adjust our plans for the day to fit the attendance we did have. This didn’t happen often but we would find ourselves occasionally having to adapt.