Just listening can often make a difference
January 19, 2007, Providence Journal

By BOB KERR

It was cold on Wednesday, the coldest day of the winter so far, but Chase Ugliori was ready for some football, so Nick Easton pulled a headband from his jacket pocket and walked out into the chill.

They kick and throw and talk. Nick has twice kicked the ball onto the roof of the Robertson School in Warwick. Those kicks have become part of the connection, something funny that happened as he and Chase got to know each other.

“I try not to miss any time,” says Nick, who works for MetLife. “So far, I have perfect attendance this year. It’s important for me to be there for him.”

It’s 45 minutes to an hour every Wednesday. It’s a time when Chase Migliori, a 10-year-old fifth grader at Robertson, has a man to talk to about whatever he wants to talk about.

“My dad used to play with me,” says Chase as he sits in the school library before a little frostbite football.

But his father lives in Texas now, and his mother, Alma, thought it would be good for him to have a positive male presence in his life.

So the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership matched the man from MetLife with the sports-loving 10-year-old from the Robertson School. They are now in their second year of talking and running around the schoolyard. There could be years to go.

It is simple and direct and shaped by the basic proposition that a kid has a better shot at the good things if there is a caring grownup who can be counted on to be there and counted on to listen.

“He’s easy to talk to,” says Chase. “And I like having a mentor. It helps me. I like the time he spends with me and the things we do.”

Sometimes, students and mentors keep the connection going right through high school. One mentor found housing for a student and his homeless family. Another, working with a student whose father had died of AIDS, helped with the often daunting task of applying to college and the successful application for a scholarship.

But at the heart of it are two people sitting around talking. Or running around throwing a football and talking.

“As long as he wants me to be his mentor I will,” says Nick Easton as he and Chase got ready to take on the first blast of winter.

He is 40 and has two daughters and has been a mentor for five years. He says MetLife makes it easy to take the time he needs. The company was a corporate sponsor of the mentoring partnership when it started in Warwick, and dozens of its employees are now involved in a program that has since expanded into every city and town in Rhode Island. There are now more than 100 companies taking part.

“We try to identify the students who need extra support,” says Arlene McNulty, the president and CEO of the mentoring partnership.

She is looking for long-term relationships, and she says the best ones seem to be those in which the student is allowed to take the lead.

There are no special skills needed to be a mentor, says McNulty. There is a background check and a couple of hours of training, but when the mentor meets the mentee, it gets down to the basics of giving a kid better odds on the future.

“It’s important with a younger kid to have a good influence, to teach about positive things,” says Nick. “Just to be there to listen — it’s important to be a good listener.”

If you think you might want to do it, if you can listen, call the mentoring partnership at (401) 732-7700.

bkerr@projo.com