Higley Wins Excellence in Mentoring Award
Great Life Mentoring’s Board of Directors is thrilled to announce our very own Founder and Director Elizabeth Higley is the newest recipient of MENTOR Washington’s Brad Owen Excellence in Mentoring Award.
MENTOR Washington is a public-private partnership founded in 2004 as a source of support for the hundreds of mentoring organizations across the state that foster positive youth development, academic success and career readiness.
The award is named after former Lt. Governor of Washington (1997-2017) and MENTOR Washington Board Member Brad Owen for his sustained and deep leadership in youth mentoring. The award recognizes leadership that has significantly impacted youth mentoring in Washington.
Elizabeth’s nomination comes on the heels of a milestone for the organization: twenty years of building an exceptional mentoring model that, backed by formal research, leads to significant improvement in mental health conditions for children from low-resource families.
As part of the nomination, DeDe Sieler, the Program Manager for Behavioral Health Prevention/Treatment Services for Clark County, Washington says, “Elizabeth is an extraordinary community leader.” Her “strong work ethic, eagerness and willingness to learn about the best mentoring practices … and dedication to others are--and continue to be--the perfect combination of skills to create a program that is literally life changing.”
In our view, the local, regional, state and national recognition and awards Great Life Mentoring has received reflect Elizabeth’s commitment to--and success in--providing quality mentoring to vulnerable children.
“I consider myself very fortunate to partner with our community’s most kind and generous people—from my professional partners, Cindy Fritz, DeDe Sieler, David DuBois and Carla Herrera, to our board members, mentors and donors. It is a high honor to nurture the children with these amazing people. Our trademark line, ‘the life you change may be your own’ is true for me as well. I am blessed because of Great Life Mentoring, and I share this award of Excellence with all of you.”
This is a breakthrough year for Great Life Mentoring, with Elizabeth leading an expansion of Great Life Mentoring to become an independent non-profit charity, enabling the organization to serve more children. Elizabeth is passionate about serving a heterogeneous population and reducing disparities.
We are extremely proud of Elizabeth for winning this award and echo DeDe’s words. Elizabeth manages Great Life Mentoring as if each of the children receiving services was her own, which we believe is one of the biggest factors attributing to the organization’s success. Every mentor is heavily vetted and receives exceedingly more training and support than national standards, so the children and their parents know they are spending time with the highest caliber of community volunteers.
We are grateful to MENTOR Washington for their recognition of Elizabeth and look forward to the future! Please take a look at how you can be part of this deeply meaningful work.