In only the fourth week that the Illini Mentor Program has been in existence, 80 University students have become active volunteers who mentor children, kindergarten- through high-school-age, at the Don Moyer Boys & Girls Club of Champaign, 201 E. Park St.

Stuart Schaff, president and founder of the Illini Mentor Program, said that he started the program after taking a Psychology 100 course last year. For the class, he was required to mentor children at the Lakeside Terrace facility of the Boys & Girls Club, which is now closed. He said that he enjoys working with children and he wanted to bring the opportunity to work with them to other students on campus.

Valeri Werpetinski, who was Schaff’s instructor for the course, said that her goal was to introduce college students to experience in the field early on so that they could shape their career choices or even change their majors.

“Their out-of-class experiences are equally important, if not more important, than class experiences,” said Werpetinski, who is also the advisor to the Illini Mentor Program.

Schaff, a sophomore in business, said that he receives e-mails every day from students who want to volunteer as mentors.

“It really makes me proud that I go to this university, where there’s such a strong history of service, where people really want to make a difference,” Schaff said.

Along with increasing the number of volunteers, Schaff said that the program has two missions. The first is to provide children with positive role models. He said that it always helps children to have someone show them how to be good people.

The second mission of the program is to provide students with the opportunity to volunteer, to work with children and to give back to the Champaign-Urbana community. Schaff said that everyone has something to bring to these children.

The mentors must meet with their mentees for two hours a week at the Boys and Girls Club, the Illini Mentor Program’s first partnership.

Anthony Moorman, Director of the Boys and Girls Club in Champaign, said the Illini Mentor Program has given the children interaction with positive, caring adults as well as variety and diversity with different cultures.

At the club, the mentors try to form good relationships with their mentees, Schaff said.

Illini mentors work with the children in a number of ways, including helping with homework, doing arts and crafts, playing basketball, playing various billiard games, working with computers and even just talking.

Julie Gorzkowski, mentor and partnership liaison for the program, said that she mentors a 6-year-old first-grader. She said she helps him with his homework, plays games with him and works on art projects with him.

Moorman said that the children enjoy when the mentors spend time with them at the club because they are open-minded and they interact with the kids.

“I’ve seen a positive response to it,” he said.

Moorman said he has a waiting list of 20 to 30 children who want to be paired up with mentors and that some parents have called in, requesting mentors for their children.

“My goal is to see every club member who comes in here on a daily basis be paired up with a mentor,” Moorman said.

Along with interacting with the children, Schaff said that mentors also attend biweekly meetings, where they can discuss concerns they have so that they can improve their relationships with their mentees.

Mindy Bauer, mentor and membership vice president of the program, said that she thinks the mentees greatly benefit from the program.

“The mentors provide them with one-on-one attention,” Bauer, a junior in LAS, said. “It gives them a positive role model to look up to. It’s another person in their lives to care about them and to support them.”

The mentors benefit from the program as well. Jeremy Macklin, mentor and treasurer, said that spending time hanging out and playing games with the 6-year-old boy he mentors is fulfilling.

“I know that I’m giving back to society. It’s a great way to spend my time,” Macklin, sophomore in LAS, said.

Schaff said that he gets a good, but indescribable feeling from mentoring.

“It really just makes you feel so good that you’ve made a difference,” he said.

Schaff said that he would like the program to build a new partnership each semester. Gorzkowski, junior in human and community development, said that at the end of April she will begin looking at other places, such as day camps and nursery care centers, to build partnerships with.

“We’ll be getting new mentors next year, and they’ll need places to go,” Gorzkowski said.

For now, the program has one partnership to start, but the executive board has optimistic plans for the future.

“The goal is to cover every organization in Champaign-Urbana that services children, but we have to start small,” Schaff said.