Creating possibilities:  mentoring changes lives
January 25, 2007, Tallahassee Democrat

By MORGAN EASTMAN

My View

January is National Mentoring Month and a great opportunity for adults to become involved in changing someone's life. Take it from me; having a mentor affords me the opportunity to see my potential.

I am a normal 16-year-old girl. I attend high school and I recently began driving. But like some seemingly “normal” people, there are some extraordinary things about me.

I was born profoundly, bi-laterally deaf, and have struggled throughout my life to break the boundaries of communication between the hearing world and myself. I received cochlear implants at the age of 2 and then learned how to speak. Today, in optimal conditions, I have around 80 percent of my hearing, but it has been a long road to this point.

It can be hard to make friends because people don't know how to talk to me. When they find out that I am deaf they start acting really weird and talking extremely slow and making fools of themselves.

I am learning how to cope with this behavior and communicate with the help of my mentor, former Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings. LG Toni and I were matched through The Able Trust's e-Mentoring Program, which provides mentors and young people with disabilities the opportunity to build a relationship using the convenience of e-mail.

I began the e-Mentoring Program in order to learn from a leader who has a made a difference in the community. I wanted to find out what it takes to have a positive influence among my peers. These things have always been really important to me.

As a mentee, I have excelled beyond all that I once thought was possible. LG Toni taught me not only about politics, but also about life and people. I have learned how to socialize with important figures in our society by viewing them as people, just other human beings. What I really liked about LG Toni is that she is an amazing woman. She has really been a positive influence on me.

Through the experiences I have had with her I am making plans for my future. I am interested in attending the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York because it has a large number of deaf students. This environment will allow me to live in both the hearing and deaf worlds.

I plan to continue with the e-Mentoring Program, hopefully with a lobbyist for the deaf community whom I met. This will help me reach my long-term goal of helping people like myself.

For other students and people with disabilities, I believe that mentoring creates new possibilities. It opens a lot of doors for you; you never know where it can lead you.

Morgan Eastman is a high-school sophomore in Leon County. The Able Trust e-mentoring program is a project of the Nonprofit Volunteer Florida Foundation, which also manages the Florida Mentoring Partnership. For more information go to www.VolunteerFloridaFoundation.org. Employers or organizations wishing to participate in the e-Mentoring program for students with disabilities can go to the e-Mentoring link at www.abletrust.org/ementor.