Believe Mr. Rogers and Me - There is Hope!

Ten years ago, the Emmy Awards published a video on YouTube showing Fred Rogers accepting the Life Time Achievement award he received in 1997. In that speech, he offered the audience a gift of ten seconds to think about the people who have helped them in life:“All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are, those who have cared about you and wanted what is best for you in life? Ten seconds of silence. I’ll watch the time.”So, who is that person for you?And, would you like to be that special someone for a child facing loneliness or trauma?Mr. Rogers has recounted, many times, how his mother taught him to “look for the helpers,” whenever there is a tragedy. He says she taught him to look for the helpers because, if you look, you will find them, and "you will know there is hope.”The people who volunteer to befriend a child in the Great Life Mentoring program are just such helpers. Everyone of them reminds us that, yes, there is tragedy in the world, but there is also hope.I, Elizabeth Higley, have been meeting the most kind and generous people in our neighborhood (the Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA area) over the past eighteen years. They are people who have reached out to say, “I’d like to mentor a child,” and we have provided them the opportunity to do just that. In turn, those wholehearted mentors have helped children overcome the hard parts of life. They have also helped to remind me that good people really do exist and, because of them, there is hope for our kids and our world.It’s time to start sharing that hope with you. So, stay tuned, because we will be sharing regular blog posts to feature these amazing mentors!If you’d like to get started and become a mentor yourself, fill out the application here now. You can be the person who gives a child confidence in themselves; you can be their friend and help them to believe they are special and they have value.If you’d like to be inspired by the most amazingly wonderful helpers volunteering in your community, follow us on Facebook or LinkedIn or return to this blog where you will see their stories coming soon.

Great Life Mentors are the good news in your neighborhood!