Guest Blog by Rita: A Real Fish Story

How do you detect a real fish story?  And what does it have to do with mentoring?

I am so very fortunate to have many wonderful mentor matches share stories with me.  A few months ago, I heard a fish story.  Is a fish story an exaggeration, by definition?  Well this match caught 86 fish – yeah 86. And they caught them ice fishing.  And it was the mentee’s first time ice fishing.  Soooo I’m thinking, really?  Well, the integrity of both the volunteer mentor and the teen mentee is reliable – and I have known them for 13 and 9 years, respectively – I am going with it.

This match is a joy to be around.  When I speak with them individually it is really a challenge to determine who has learned more from whom.  I like that, a lot.  Mentors tell me they sign up to give a kid some fun and opportunity.  They end up learning so much about gratitude, choices, decision making, dealing with circumstances they cannot control and joy.  That is not a fish story; it is a mentor story I have heard from male and female mentors, numerous times.

-Rita Younger, Program Coordinator, Kids 'n Kinship