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Founder of mentoring movement encourages Middletown participation

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By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer 10:44 PM Tuesday, January 31, 2012

MIDDLETOWN — Give from the overflow.

That’s the message Susan L. Taylor, founder and CEO of National CARES Mentoring Movement, delivered Tuesday night at the Sycamore Banquet Center. The event was designed to help raise awareness about Southwest Ohio Cares Mentoring Circle, which recruits mentors from Butler, Hamilton and Montgomery counties.

Taylor, the editor-in-chief emeritus of Essence Magazine, founded the national organization in 2005 to combat the various dangers facing African American youth, including drug abuse and gun violence.

Now in 60 cities nationwide, the National CARES Mentoring Movement’s mentoring recruitment circles do three things, Taylor said.

“We collect mentors because we recruit them, we connect with you and then we direct you to where you’re needed,” she said.

According to research from the California Mentor Foundation, 98 percent of children who are mentored don’t drop out of school and don’t become parents while they are teenagers, Taylor said. Eighty-nine percent don’t do drugs.

“We’re not asking you take a child into your home,” she said. “We’re not asking you to give a child money. All we’re asking of you to do is to give a child some of your time,” she said. “One hour of your week to save a life.”

The only way to create peace in one’s life is not by accruing money and possessions, but rather by serving, she said.

“It’s not giving from what you don’t have. It’s giving from the overflow,” she said.

Monique Patterson of Middletown said she planned to be a mentor. “There’s a lot going on in the world with our youth and I just want to be part of making the change,” she said.

Steve Hightower, chairman of the Southwest Ohio Cares Mentoring Circle, said the group’s mission is to save children.

“Our children are dying,” he said. “They don’t have direction and they don’t have mentors. You can’t help everybody but if you just help one, you’ve done something to better your life.”

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