GRIP Mentoring focuses on changing our mentees' lives, but that's not the only benefit of mentoring.  We know we change mentors' lives as they are introduced to the individual and social problems students face.  In addition, there are cultural and environmental benefits to mentoring. 

Colin Beavan, better known as No Impact Man, writes about the power of mentoring to address environmental concerns in the article below.
 Here's a small excerpt:

"I think that maybe, just maybe, mentoring may actually be one element in saving our planet from complete degradation and humans from complete unhappiness.
Hyper-consumerism is clearly driven by many institutional and cultural forces. But amongst them, according to consumer theorists, is the principle of sublimation.... When we can’t get an emotional need met directly, we try to gain satisfaction in round about ways. Hence, some of us eat when we are sad, drink when we are frustrated or—yes—go shopping when we are lonely.

My questions is, what if those of us who went out shopping on a Saturday morning because we felt lonely instead addressed our need for connection directly? What if we helped to raise other people’s kids? Isn’t it just possible we might all find we had more meaningful, safer, satisfying lives while buying a little less junk?
But even if I’m wrong, isn’t it possible that by helping each other get through this thing called life—that we would all just be a little happier?"

http://chronicle.umbmentoring.org/no-impact-man-speaks-the-environmental-case-for-for-youth-mentoring/

So...come change a child's life and save the planet at the same time!  Get more information at Youth and Shelter Service's website http://www.yss.ames.ia.us/en/programs/grip_mentoring/for_potential_mentors/
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