BOSTON, January 18, 2022 /CSRwire/ - MENTOR, the nation’s unifying champion of the mentoring movement, announces the 2022 Honorees of the Annual Excellence in Mentoring Awards. The Excellence in Mentoring awardees represent the breadth and depth of the mentoring movement and the power of mentoring relationships to support, inspire and engage young people.

This year’s awards ceremony will take place on January 28 as part of the National Mentoring Summit, bringing together more than 2,000 experts, practitioners, advocates and philanthropic partners to advance mentoring nationwide. The Summit closes out National Mentoring Month, celebrated each January to focus national attention on the value of mentoring to build meaningful, lasting relationships for young people and adults alike.

“The outstanding diversity of this year’s nominees and honorees illustrate the many paths to working to increase our collective well-being, connection to one another, stability and opportunity,” said David Shapiro, MENTOR’s CEO. “As we celebrate these exemplars of the mentoring movement, we also invite others to follow their lead in ensuring all our young people have the relationships needed to thrive.”

2022 EXCELLENCE IN MENTORING AWARD WINNERS AND FINALISTS

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD - Daryle Cobb, Franklin County (OH) Children Services

The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to an individual who has dedicated their life’s work to supporting youth through mentoring. For three decades, this year’s award winner, Daryle Cobb, has demonstrated profound dedication to supporting youth with opportunities and connections.

Daryle’s career has been centered on ensuring the safety, permanency and well-being of Franklin County Ohio’s most vulnerable youth as a caseworker, kinship care worker and director of the Simba Mentoring program. Simba Mentoring is a mentoring program with culturally focused and enriching programming that matches Black boys involved with the child welfare system with Black male mentors. Daryle has also been a mentor with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio for three mentees over 25 years. Even after these matches formally ended, the mentees have continued to call on Daryle for advice and support and to celebrate successes that were sometimes only possible because he taught them to believe in themselves.

The finalists for the Lifetime Achievement Award are:

• Mercedes Cintrón from Puerto Rico Youth at Risk, Inc.
• Robin McHaelen from True Colors, Inc.
• Nicole Steele from Diamond in the Rough Youth Development Program

CORPORATE YOUTH LEADERSHIP AWARD - Sanah Jivani, Founder and CEO, Love Your Natural Self Foundation

The Corporate Youth Leadership Award is presented to a young person who has participated in a corporate mentoring initiative and shown great leadership potential. This year’s award winner is Sanah Jivani.

Sanah is a dual degree graduate from The University of Pennsylvania, where she received a M.S. in Non-Profit Leadership and an M.S.E.d. Education, Culture and Society. Currently, she works as the Community Engagement Manager at Generation Hope, focusing on building community partnerships, recruiting mentors and promoting college access.

Sanah has spent the last few years both engaging in and leading corporate mentoring initiatives, beginning in high school, where she was selected as one of thirty young people around the nation to be a part of the State Farm Youth Advisory Board. Through this opportunity, she worked with young people to allocate 5 million dollars of State Farm’s philanthropy budget to organizations around the nation. She was selected as the United States Delegate for Girls20, the only platform for young women to influence decisions of the G20, and has recently been involved with a corporate mentoring initiative at Bain & Company where she has been bringing virtual mental health and anti-bullying assemblies to students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She is also the founder and CEO of a non-profit organization called The Love Your Natural Self Foundation, which focuses on empowering individuals through events, mentors and hands-on sessions. She started this organization after losing all of her hair to alopecia in the seventh grade and struggling with bullying and low self-worth. Now, her non-profit organization hosts projects in 150 schools and 28 countries worldwide, including the International Day of Self-Love. She has reached over 50,000 students through speaking engagements.

IMPACTFUL PHILANTHROPY AWARD - Stacey Ullrich, Head of Global Community Impact, Under Armour and Executive Director, Under Armour Foundation (Baltimore, MD)

The Impactful Philanthropy Award highlights a foundation, company or individual philanthropist who has invested time and funds into mentoring initiatives across the nation and in their own communities. This year’s honoree is Stacey Ullrich, Head of Global Community Impact, Under Armour and Executive Director, Under Armour Foundation.

Prior to joining Under Armour, Stacey held positions with Constellation Energy, PW Feats, Earl Beckwith & Associates, and the PGA TOUR. As part of her philanthropic efforts, she serves on the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, Center Club, iMentor, Project Pnuema, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Baltimore, Inc. and University Systems of Maryland Foundation board.

Stacey has been a key figure in the mentoring movement in Baltimore. From supporting MENTOR MD|DC since its inception to supporting mentoring at a number of high schools and grassroots programs throughout Baltimore City, Stacey has made mentoring a cornerstone of her personal and professional life and led Under Armour in making mentorship a priority focus. Most recently, she supported mentor recruitment at Under Armour’s headquarters in support of a newly launched mentoring initiative for 9th grade students at several Baltimore high schools. Additionally, she supports a number of internal mentoring initiatives at Under Armour designed to encourage and engage young professionals. Stacey has also been active in engaging the local youth development and mentoring program field by speaking at a number of funders panels and roundtables, to provide even greater awareness into the need to fund grassroots and community-based programs.

The finalists for the Impactful Philanthropy Award are:

• Andrea Elder-Howell, Board Secretary of MENTOR NY
• Thomas F. Gilbane, Jr., Board Member of ACE Mentor Program
• Teddy Kapur, Board Chair of Imagine LA

PUBLIC ELEVATION: Jamal Stroud, Big Homie Lil Homie Mentoring (Columbia, South Carolina)

The Public Elevation Award is given to an individual or organization who uses their influence and public platform to encourage, support and draw awareness to mentoring.

This year’s award goes to Jamal Stroud, founder of Big Homie Lil Homie Mentoring, a mentoring program for young boys growing up without father figures. On a national level, Jamal works as the Mentor and Outreach Manager for Camp HOPE America where he provides technical assistance to 40 different programs throughout the United States. Jamal has been recognized locally and nationally for the lasting impact he’s had on more than 10,000 youth, offering support and positive male role models for young people in South Carolina. Jamal’s personal experience growing up in the foster care system and living in six different homes by the time he was six years old led him to the frontlines of improving and advocating for youth. Jamal has been a guest on The Ellen Show and has received numerous awards, including winning the prestigious Jefferson Award.

The finalists for the Public Elevation Award are:

• Jay Flores, founder of Invent the Change, LLC
• Wafa Saeed from the Sudanese American Public Affairs Association

PUBLIC SERVICE

The Public Service Award is a twofold honor – we celebrate individuals at both the federal and state/local level as champions in government who support the mission of mentoring. These public servants dedicate their knowledge, time and platforms to supporting mentoring and encourage adults to become mentors.

FEDERAL: The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, U.S. House of Representatives, Pennnsylvania-05

At the federal level, this year’s Public Service Award goes to Representative Mary Gay Scanlon, a true champion for mentoring on Capitol Hill.

Representative Scanlon has dedicated her career to serving the most vulnerable — first as a lawyer and now in Congress. She was first sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 following a special election, and currently represents Pennsylvania’s 5th Congressional District. Representative Scanlon’s legislative priorities include voting rights, access to justice, education, supporting economic growth for her region, common sense gun safety and ending hunger. Representative Scanlon is a mentor herself and serves as the chair of the Congressional Youth Mentoring Caucus, which works to advance support for the mentoring movement on Capitol Hill through events, networking and legislative action.

STATE & LOCAL: The Honorable Ned Lamont, Governor of Connecticut

At the state level, this year’s Public Service Award goes to Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut.

Governor Lamont has been a steadfast advocate of mentoring in his state. During COVID-19, he has added mentoring as a volunteer opportunity to the StateUpCT portal, connecting almost 200 more mentors to young people during a time of crisis. Additionally, he serves as the co-chair of the board of The Governor’s Prevention Partnership (MENTOR’s Affiliate in Connecticut), and is an active participant in events elevating mentoring across the state. Governor Lamont often speaks affectionately about this time as a volunteer teacher at a high school in his state where he shared his knowledge of small business ownership and helped connect students to local internships.

Congratulations to all of our 2022 honorees. The awards ceremony is free to the public and attendees can register here.

ABOUT MENTOR

MENTOR is the unifying champion for expanding the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships across the United States. 30 years ago, MENTOR was created to expand opportunities for young people by building a youth mentoring field and movement. The result: a more than 10-fold increase in young people in structured mentoring relationships. Today, MENTOR is the primary resource and expert for the youth mentoring field, representing a movement that meets young people everywhere they are – from schools, to workplaces, and beyond. MENTOR operates in collaboration with 24 local Affiliates across the country. For more information, visit mentoring.org.

MENTOR

MENTOR

MENTOR is the unifying champion for expanding the quality and quantity of mentoring relationships across the United States. 30 years ago, MENTOR was created to expand  opportunities for young people by building a youth mentoring field and movement. The result: a more than 10-fold increase in young people in structured mentoring relationships. Today, MENTOR is the expert voice representing a movement that meets young people everywhere they are – from schools, to workplaces, and beyond. MENTOR operates in collaboration with 25 local Affiliates across the country. For more information, visit mentoring.org.

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