The Costco Connection

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Mentoring makes a difference

BY CHRISTINA GUERRERO

AT AGE ;;, Angel Taitano felt she had lost her best friend when her mother died. Through a youth mentoring program, she was paired with Doneka Lang, who filled that void in Taitano’s life with a genuine friendship.

“She’s made a huge impact on my life,” says
Taitano, now ;; years old. “Before we met, I could
tell I was spiraling out of control—I mean, my
mother had just passed. I didn’t know what was
going to really happen to me.”
Taitano was introduced to Lang through
Friends of the Children Seattle (friendsseattle.
org), a chapter of Friends of the Children (friends
ofthechildren.org), a nonprofit organization
dedicated to breaking the cycle of generational
poverty with salaried, professional, full-time
mentoring employees.

“Their job is to be there every step of the
way, through every challenge and every success
and every setback, to ensure that these youths
graduate from high school with a plan for post-
secondary education, avoid the juvenile justice
system and avoid teen parenting,” says Mary
Rennekamp Vegas, deputy director of Friends
of the Children Seattle. “And those seem like
kind of basic outcomes, but we’re working with
youth who are stuck in these generational cycles
of poverty. And studies have shown that if you
can sort of eliminate these three barriers, the
child’s chance for success grows exponentially.”
Friends of the Children was founded in
Oregon in ;;;; and has grown to
include chapters in Mass-
achusetts, New York, Florida,
California and Cornwall,
England. The program space
provided by the chapters serves
as a relaxed environment for the
first four to six months, where
mentors begin to build on their
relationships with the children,
who remain in the program for
up to ;;.; years.

A full-time mentor for five years, Lang, a Costco member, has a caseload that fluctuates from six to ;; girls, whom she meets with once a week. Taitano, who recently graduated from high school, says Lang inspired her to be better and motivated her to take three years of honors classes.

“I really liked how close the mentors actually became with their child,” Taitano says about the Seattle chapter.

“They all have numerous [children they work with], but they still create a bond with each and every one, and it really makes you feel like you have a second person to rely on, because things could happen in your family, and maybe you don’t want to talk to your family members.”