Awards

Stacey Altemus is currently mentoring two children, one at Kirk Middle School and one at Jennie Smith Elementary School. She has been mentoring for ten years. She is also one of the workplace mentor coordinators at Nationwide Financial Network. The mentor program at Nationwide has helped to keep the morale of the employees positive and up-beat, and has grown because of her passion and drive to build the program despite several changes within the company over the past few years. Stacey believes that it takes a village to raise a child, and she is a wonderful example of what giving back to the community really means.

Karen Beare is currently mentoring two children at Baltz Elementary School. She was inspired to start mentoring after hearing Tom Carper give a talk on volunteering. She has mentored five children, including Maria, whom she has been with for ten years, having followed her through five different school changes. She has also been very active in helping to continue the mentoring program at Baltz because of her desire to remain a consistent, positive presence in the lives of children in her community.

Michael Bove has been mentoring the same child for six years, since the mentoring program began at Delaware School for the Deaf. He has been active in mentoring since 1998. He's had a profound impact on developing his mentee's communication skills, as he is a deaf child of Chinese immigrants who do not speak, read, or write English or know American Sign Language very well. Michael comes from an all deaf family, and he has used his American Sign Language skills to build an excellent relationship with his mentee. He also helped to open the opportunity for mentors to work with deaf children at the Delaware School for the Deaf with Tom Stevenson.

Stephanie Bryant-Crowe is a mentor through her employer mentor program at Aetna, Inc, and has followed one student, Colby, for seven years. Since starting in grade three they have gone from playing with cars to talking about driving cars. Stephanie is also the workplace mentor coordinator at the Aetna-Dover Service Center and recruited fifteen new co-workers to become mentors this fall. She has recruited many mentors including her own family members.

Martha Carper has been mentoring for more than ten years. She started mentoring Tiarra when she was in elementary school, and their relationship has continued through high school and graduation. Martha now also mentors Tiarra's younger brother Quamere. As First Lady of Delaware when her husband was Governor, she visited every elementary school in the state. We applaud her personal and public commitment to children and mentoring.

Vaughn Hopkins has been mentoring at P.S. DuPont Elementary School for the past seven years. His humility, humanity, unselfishness and strong sense of giving back shines through in his comments: “I feel it is important for me to give back to the kids coming up in today's society. If we don't give back, these kids will be completely lost.” Vaughn is a role model and inspiration to the children fortunate enough to know him as a mentor, and he is a person with a big heart and great integrity. As an employee, he represents AstraZeneca with distinction.

Nicole Kalinosky has been a mentor at Kirk Middle School and Jennie Smith Elementary School through her employer mentor program at Nationwide Financial Network for four years. She has mentored students from grades five through eight and is currently mentoring Brittany at Jennie Smith and Kelsey who has recently moved to Shue-Medill Middle School. She gives her time not only as a mentor but also as one of the workplace mentor coordinators for Nationwide. This fall, she helped Stacey Altemus recruit twenty-eight new mentors, coordinate their training and oversee their placement with children in the schools.

Dr. Tony Marchio has been mentoring his 7th grade student since the 1st grade. When the child moved to another district for a year, Dr. Marchio mentored him there. Superintendent Marchio has been an active mentor in Appoquinimink School District since his arrival there twelve years ago, typically mentoring two students each year. He has expanded his district's relationship with Creative Mentoring by implementing the program in several of the schools in the district, and by becoming a Creative Mentoring Business Partner to encourage and support employees of Appoquinimink School District who want to mentor. He also actively promotes mentoring to the community and has been a spokesperson for mentoring across the state. He says, “mentoring is the best part of my week and an opportunity for me to really connect with students, to stay grounded and to keep the focus on what is really important about my job.”

Judy Melman started mentoring at Warner Elementary School twelve years ago and is currently mentoring three girls. She started mentoring each of them in 1st grade. Now Kenyetta is in 10th grade at Concord High School, Shanice is in 8th grade at Stanton Middle School, and Jori is in 7th grade at Springer Middle School. She enjoys the warm relationships she has developed with each girl and the ease with which they can talk.

Cyndy Osborne is a mentor at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School. She began mentoring through the employer mentor program at State of Delaware but maintained her affiliation with Mt. Pleasant after resigning from State service. Over the course of eight years, she has mentored six children from kindergarten through 3rd grade. She remains in contact with two former mentees who are in 5th grade at other schools. Cynthia presently mentors 2nd grade twins Keyana and Willeek. Cyndy's Mentor Coordinator says that she is a “truly giving person who expects nothing in return. Every teacher is thrilled to have her mentoring a child in their room and is amazed with her spirit and energy.”

Richard Schauer is currently mentoring at John Bassett Moore Intermediate School and has been active in the Smyrna schools for eight years. He has mentored three boys in the elementary and middle schools. He is currently mentoring 5th grader Tyler, who Rich hopes to follow into high school. His most important goal with his mentees has been to encourage them to get a good basic education so that they can gain the skills necessary to get good jobs when they grow up.

Tom Stevenson has been mentoring since 1997, when Senator Carper was recruiting mentors from the business community. He followed his first student from 2nd grade through 10th and has been with his current 8th grade student at Delaware School for the Deaf for four years. He also serves as Chair of the Delaware Mentoring Council's Business Mentoring Alliance, which works to strengthen mentoring throughout the State. He helped start a mentoring program at Delaware Youth for Christ, through a partnership with Creative Mentoring. He has been a long-time mentor advocate, and actively encourages his employees at WSFS Cash Connect to become mentors.

Carol White is currently mentoring at Carrcroft Elementary School, where she has been a dedicated mentor for ten years. She started mentoring through Creative Mentoring when she worked for Connecting Generations, and has continued to mentor after retiring from the organization in 2006. Her constant support and devotion to children has been a wonderful presence at Carrcroft.

Lyndon Yearick mentors at Starr Hill Elementary, through the WSFS employee mentoring program. Lyndon Yearick has been a mentor for the past six years. He has not only built relationships with several children in traditional one-on-one mentoring, but he recently started a group mentoring effort at Starr Hill with four boys, two of them at one time.