Hey Everyone,

Thanks for visiting my page to learn about this important initiative! As many of you know, I have been actively involved in the iMentor program since Fall of 2010 and it has been a great experience thus far! Recently, in January 2012 I was elected onto the Young Executive Board and I look forward to continue working to serve the NYC community and beyond in the near future.

My mentee's name is Jose (pictured with me to the left), and he is a Senior at International HS at Lafayette in Brooklyn, NY. Jose immigrated to America from Mexico 3 years ago and did not speak any English. He began learning English by watching TV shows in the US (who says TV isn't educational??). In 3 short years, he has shown tremendous growth! He not only reads and writes English well now, but has successfully been navigating through the NYC school system. Jose has just recently passed 4 of his Regents exams, and now only has one more to finish before graduation. He is on track currently to grauduate this summer and we are already discussing post-graduation plans (Jose is very interested in serving his community through criminal justice/policework).

We have had our fair share of struggles throughout these past two years and it has not always been easy, at some points I wasn't sure if Jose was going to make it through school. I quickly learned that perseverence is the key and sometimes students just need to know someone is there who cares. In addition, ALL throughout I have been able to rely on the support of the iMentor staff and fellow volunteers for advice and guidance. It truly is an amazing program and organization, and I honestly wouldn't of setup this page if I didn't believe this was a worthy cause.

Money is tight for everyone these days, but please know that your contributions (no matter how small) will go directly towards helping students like Jose find mentors to help them achieve their goals and realize their potential. My $1,000 target goal if reached will be able to support a mentor-mentee pair for a full year

Thanks again for the support by and contact me with any questions!

-Bernie

ABOUT IMENTOR

iMentor provides youth in underserved communities with college-educated mentors who help students develop the leadership, academic, and social skills needed to graduate high school college ready and succeed in college.

Mentors send one weekly email on a topic that iMentor provides and meet their mentees once a month at a group event that iMentor organizes. This year, 2,400 New York City high school students will work one-on-one with their mentors to build a bright future.

In January of 2012, Mayor Bloomberg recognized iMentor in his State of the City address, as iMentor partnered with 10 companies in NYC that pledged to recruit 100 employees to join as mentors (Accenture, Barclays, Bloomberg LP, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Ernst & Young LLC, Goldman Sachs, Marsh & McLennan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS).

Want to learn more? Check out what it takes to become a mentor.