Son of a Saint: Mentor + Volunteer Recruitment and Engagement During a Pandemic

Son of a Saint is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of fatherless boys in the Greater New Orleans area. Through our mission, we work to uplift the young men in our program through mentorship, emotional support, development of life skills, exposure to constructive experiences and formation of positive, lasting peer-to-peer relationships. We equip our mentees with the tools they need to become productive men, giving them hope, vision and opportunity. We also provide a secure and consistent environment for them. Our program’s most important role is simply to be a good example on a holistic level.

This year, 2021, marks our organization’s 10th anniversary and we experienced a gratifying journey throughout 2020 with recent events and milestones. The COVID-19 pandemic did of course challenge us and threw a couple of curveballs our way, specifically with mentor and volunteer recruitment and engagement.

With the city of New Orleans and the country shut down for nearly a year, leaving us and many of our valued partners unable to host events and activities, it initially became very challenging to keep mentors and volunteers engaged consistently.

However, that’s when our programming team began to think outside the box to find creative ways to recruit, engage and retain mentors and volunteers. One of the first things we did was create a space each week to come up with new, fresh, innovative programming ideas that would prove beneficial to the young men we serve. That became a best practice that stayed with us and that we still enact to this day. I would strongly encourage all mentorship practitioners to set aside a time each week where your team can brainstorm. We call it ‘Innovation Incubation’ and we hold this interactive team meeting every Monday at noon.

Some of our Innovation Incubation sessions allowed us to engage in dialogue on how to target mentors and volunteers and figure out best practices when it comes to utilizing their skills, resources and more importantly, their time to support our mission.

Listed below are programming initiatives where we directly engaged mentors and volunteers during the pandemic:

• Son of a Saint Virtual Learning Hub: The Son of a Saint Virtual Learning Hub served students who lacked home internet access, or did not have consistent adult supervision during the day or experienced a home environment that could distract from schoolwork. Mentors and volunteers stepped up, stepped in, and served as tutors.
• Son of a Saint Mentor Education Newsletter (M.E.N.): This newsletter is distributed monthly to mentors to provide timely and engaging information regarding the importance of mentoring youth.
• Son of a Saint Monthly Mentor Call: The Son of a Saint Monthly Mentor Call is held via Zoom on the last Friday of each month at 12:30 p.m. CT. The purpose of this call is to provide mentors with an overall update on the organization. It is an opportunity for select Son of a Saint staff to give a brief update of their department as it pertains to mentors.
• Son of a Saint Study Hall: We partnered with the young men of Collegiate 100 of Xavier University of Louisiana and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. in Greater New Orleans to facilitate study hall. Mentees had the opportunity to engage with college-educated young men for educational support, group mentorship, and college exploration.
• Meal Deliveries: Son of a Saint partnered with multiple food vendors and we utilized our mentors and volunteers to help deliver more than 15,000 meals to families struggling to keep food on the table at the height of the pandemic.
• #HashtagLunchbag: Son of a Saint joined the #HashtagLunch bag movement. We reached out to mentors and volunteers to prepare lunch bags for the New Orleans homeless community.
• Son of a Saint Mentor + Volunteer Mixer: This event is an engaging forum that we host quarterly to introduce community members, supporters, and newly introduced guests to Son of a Saint. Those who attend have the opportunity to learn more about the organization and how to get involved.
• Son of a Saint Mentor Appreciation: We show our appreciation for our mentors in a number of ways to keep them engaged, but more importantly to retain them. These appreciation events are scheduled quarterly and they vary from a barbeque & crawfish boil to rock climbing. We provide gift cards and a certificate to our mentor of the month recipients and we highlight them on our social media platforms. They volunteer their time, energy and resources to the organization so we make it a point to celebrate and appreciate their contribution to the organization and the mentees.

Although the pandemic caused much hardship and uncertainty, we decided as an organization that we were not going to allow it to hinder us from supporting our mentees and increasing our mentor and volunteer pool.

We are on the brink of doubling the size of our overall mentee membership to reach 200 boys by the end of 2021. With that said, we continue to look for Supportive, Accessible, Inclusive, Nurturing, and Thoughtful (S.A.I.N.T.) mentors to help us support our mission.

The ultimate goal is to position the young men we serve to join community councils and boards of education, or to lead health care systems and to transform justice municipalities. They have the potential to restructure or even create Fortune 500 companies or start their own civic or grassroots organizations where they live. Through occupying these positions and critical seats at the table, Son of a Saint aims to ensure its young men will establish and demonstrate equality from the top.

The transformation will continue as Son of a Saint steps into its bold future. We’re 10 years in, with so much more to come.

For more information about Son of Saint’s efforts to support fatherless boys in the Greater New Orleans area, contact Will Jones at william@sonofasaint.org.