Corporate Campus Mentoring Program Overview - BSW

In 2012 at the National Mentoring Summit in DC, an excellent presentation explained the Beyond School Walls mentoring program, a collaboration of Philadelphia's top businesses and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southeast Pennsylvania. If schools cooperated, this model could be adapted to any city as a public-private partnership for elementary, middle and/or high schools. 

In essence, students are taken to corporate buildings to have on-site mentoring. 

To adapt in Oklahoma, the businesses would have to pay for buses and drivers and perhaps lunch, if done through lunch, or have school cafeterias pack brown bag lunches on mentoring days. A school liaison and a corporate one would coordinate the program between each school and company. This program is not limited to a Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. In Oklahoma City, many companies adopt a school. Be creative! We will be happy to consult.  

To read model specifics, see the March 22, 2014 blog post. 

From the website:

Imagine the possibilities... 

…a child’s eyes grow big with excitement as they enter a
   skyscraper for the first time.
…a boy looks forward to school because he will visit his mentor.
…a student says that she wants to be a CEO.
…an employee returns to his desk energized by an hour with his mentee.

What will you start at your company or school?

School-Based Mentoring with a Twist!
Beyond School Walls is a version of Big Brothers Big Sisters’ (BBBS) blue-ribbon one-to-one youth mentoring program. Through a partnership with BBBS SEPA, companies like Comcast, Exelon Generation and Urban Outfitters give back to the community by hosting children from a nearby school at their corporate office. The children meet in the workplace with the employee volunteer mentor two to four times per month during the school day for about an hour. A BBBS SEPA Match Support Specialist manages the program on-site while Bigs and Littles play games, do arts and crafts, tour the office or just talk with one another. BBBS SEPA launched the Beyond School Walls program in 2005 and currently has 21 corporate partners participating in the program.

What are the benefits for the child?BBBS SEPA's Beyond School Walls program introduces children to jobs at an early age, giving them an opportunity to learn about the corporate world first-hand. Through relationships with "Corporate Bigs", Littles experience what it means to work for a corporation and the educational requirements needed to achieve this professional success.

At Wawa's headquarters in Delaware County, Littles and Bigs can take a walk to the farm to visit dairy cows. At CIGNA, it's a weekly lunch in a skyscraper that most Littles in the program never imagined visiting.

The value is the same: children are exposed to professional environments, new career paths and life goals are introduced, and lives are truly changed.

“We don’t want to reinvent the wheel in our community investment programs, so we look for strong partners who have excellent programs. This is the single best program that we have been able to partner with.”
- David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President, Comcast

“I used to want to be a teacher. Now I want to be a president of a company.”
- Beyond School Walls Little Sister

“I constantly tell friends, family, neighbors, contacts about the Beyond School Walls program.”
- Beyond School Walls Big

Partners

To learn more about starting a Beyond School Walls program, contact Wes Enicks, Development Director, at wenicks@bbbssepa.org or 215.790.9200.

http://www.bbbssepa.org/site/c.8rJNK0MHJjLYH/b.6299407/k.F510/Beyond_School_Walls.htm

Ret. 3-18-14