April 25, 2006

Governor Sebelius, Coach Snyder convene first Mentoring Council meeting
Group of mentoring professionals to help guide Kansas Mentors

“Kansas already has great mentoring opportunities for children, and Governor Kathleen Sebelius and former Kansas State Football Coach Bill Snyder say they want to build on those opportunities through the Kansas Mentors initiative.

Today, they held the first meeting of the Mentoring Council, a group of mentoring professionals from organizations around Kansas who will help guide Kansas Mentors as it seeks to promote mentoring throughout the state.

“Coach Snyder and I want to help existing mentoring programs reach out to more adults and children. And where there aren’t any local mentoring programs, we want to help local community leaders start them,” said Governor Sebelius.

“We’re reaching out to mentoring leaders to get their expertise on how we help current programs grow and how we provide tools to communities to start their own mentoring efforts,” Coach Snyder said.

During its first meeting the Mentoring Council began establishing goals for the council which include: developing and distributing guidelines that successful mentoring partners can follow; a toolkit providing underserved communities with the resources they need to establish a mentoring program; and promoting existing programs and the need for additional volunteer mentors.

Coach Snyder will serve as the council chair with Kristy McKechnie and Robert Shoop serving as vice-chairs.

Mentoring Council members include:

• Robert Shoop, Kansas State University
• Kristy McKechnie
• Bob Bock, Santa Fe Council of Boy Scouts
• Winston Brooks, Wichita School District
• Dawn DeArmond, Kansas Big Brothers Big Sisters
• Jaya Esobar, MANA de Wichita
• Brenda Eddy, Kansas Youth Empowerment Academy
• Lori Johnson, YouthFriends
• Laura Kaiser, Kansas Parent Teacher Association
• Kathleen Karr, Kansas City Foster Grandparents
• Keaton Kels, Communities in Schools
• Pat McNally, Kansas 4-H Youth Development
• Janette Meis, CASA
• Sam Muyskens, Interfaith-Wichita
• Mark Nordstrom, Kansas Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs
• Diane Oakes, Kaw Valley Girl Scouts
• Jim Redmon, Kansas Children’s Cabinet
• Dennis Schoenebeck, Wichita YMCA

For more information about the Kansas Mentors program please visit: www.ksmentors.ks.gov