Mentor/Mentee Meetup

Despite the cold, wet whether the Step Ahead team gathered at the Yerba Buena Library this past Saturday, December 1st for a weekend mentor/mentee meeting. The Step Ahead students arrived early to set up the library. Before they swung into action, they had anintroduction meeting to make sure that everyone was on the same page. They started bygoing around the room introducing themselves, explaining how they were feeling thatmorning, their set role and their goal for the day. The Step Ahead Manager-in-Training Mariella directed the students with the help of Hilda to transform the library. They set upa welcome table and breakfast for everyone, rearranged the tables and chairs, as well ashung CCPY banners.

When the Step Up students and their mentors arrived, everyone checked in to receivetheir name tags, got some food and got down to business. Liset greeted the roughly 75attendees and ran the meeting. She ensured that if there were any new faces that theywere properly introduced. It is customary during any CCPY function that if you are newyou must stand up and answer a series of question to introduce you to the group.

Following introductions, the games began. Liset and Amanda counted off the adultsand students respectively and separated everyone into four groups. Each group formeda seated line between the tables “criss, cross, applesauce style,” as Amanda called it,facing the front of the room. Liset explained a team building exercise where she drewan image on a piece of paper and the last person in the line was the only one to see it.The last person would then draw on the back of the person in front of them the image.This continues through the entire line and the person at the head of the line draws thatimage on paper. Each of the four teams final images were compared and the team withthe closest image to the original gained a point. After four rounds of this, Liset comparedthe results and announced the winning team. After everyone had stretched their legs andreturned to their seats she explained the goals of the team exercise. Focus and followinginstructions would ultimately lead to the goal, which in this case was the original image.But that also extends to the work at CCPY. Each student sets three goals for themselves that then works with their mentor to achieve those goals.