Uplifting Students in the Middle of a Pandemic: Mentoring Meeting

—By Olivia Gathright

On November 17th the first Peer Mentoring Meeting of the Fall of 2020 was ran by none other than Georgina Mencher, an Academic Advisor for the Education department. Though there were plenty of things to hinder the start of this organization, Mencher had recently kickstarted Peer Mentoring into full drive.

Peer Mentoring is an organization within the Passaic County Community College. The meetings are currently taking place on Zoom due to the ongoing pandemic. The call for this group is to help those who are at the start of their college career, as well as those who are on the verge of graduating a chance to instill their good values and wisdom to those who are ready to listen.

The advantages of peer mentoring are as followed: they consistently provide education where there are gaps missing, they challenge the mentee with ideas and perspectives that they might not have thought of originally, as well as provide a positive and creative outlet for sharing.

Since the first meeting, there have been two consecutive meetings that have taken place successfully. The first meeting was to gather the mentees together and give them a taste of what to expect in their mentorship.

Mencher has been exceptional in her ability to uplift a group even in the middle of a pandemic, as well as offer a heartwarming place for participants to vent and feel like they have a greater sense of their college career. The group meets twice a month with a limit of 2 weeks of absence from talking to their mentor.

The participants of the group are mostly Education majors, ranging between Early Childhood Education, Teacher Education, Early Childhood Education in Applied Science, and Childhood Development associate Certificate Achievement.

For more information contact Georgina Mencher at: Tel: 973-684-5936 or Email: gmencher@pccc.edu.