“For anyone that may be interested in mentoring or working with people in general, the things that help me the most are going into it with your whole heart and always being truthful. ”

I am Keion L. Stella and in addition to being an Ivy Bridge student, I work for the United Methodist Community Center. My title here is Program Advocate. My job duties include, but are not limited to, truancy prevention, re-entry, veteran aide, mentoring, and visiting kids that are in the juvenile justice center. The parts that I love the most about my job is that I get to be hands-on with troubled youth, and the skills that I have learned through my life can play a major role in helping them.

Truancy prevention is when you work with the families of truant kids and help them in any way that would be beneficial to their child’s attendance in school. Whether it's providing clean clothes, helping with bills, giving food, etc. we will do whatever it takes for that child to become more productive. I am there for them in and out of court. I make sure the parents understand how severe that truancy is.

The re-entry program is for when people get released from prison. We work to motivate, educate, and better prepare these men for life after time served in prison. We work with them to lead them in the right direction so they won’t become repeat offenders. Giving them tools such as job training and help with the Ohio Benefits Bank will hopefully make their decisions more positive so they will become successful.

Mentoring is by far my favorite part of the day. I usually have a group of 30 boys and we sit and talk about subjects that we planned. Our topics cover a wide scale such as drugs, sex, gangs, money management, love, respect, and so forth. All the guys that are in these groups are under-privileged kids, which I was myself. That is why it is so easy for me to work with them. As a child I made a lot of mistakes. By age ten, I was arrested and sent to boot-camp for 30 days. From then until age 16, I was in and out of trouble. At 16, when I was finally off of probation, I woke up. I decided that I was a better person than I was portraying and that I would not continue to carry myself like that. I am not better than these kids and they know I was in their shoes before. I think that's why I gained their respect. There are times when it is two to three different gangs that are in the meetings, but they treat each other with respect as well as they treat me with respect.

For anyone that may be interested in mentoring or working with people in general, the things that help me the most are going into it with your whole heart and always being truthful. Being able to talk about my personal experiences, that it might help the next person is key as well. Always stay open for suggestions and do not think that you can’t learn something from the people you are dealing with. These are just some of the things that I do at work and I am glad that you let me share them with you.

Keion is a student in the Ivy Bridge College associate degree program.