“Any time you have a caring adult showing up for a kid, you can’t help but make a difference,” says JC Joyce. She chairs the South Dakota board of TeamMates.
TeamMates was started by iconic University of Nebraska-Lincoln Coach Tom Osborne in the early 1990s. His idea was simple: empower his football players to give back to the Lincoln community by mentoring high school students. For many of the students who were mentored, their relationship with these Cornhusker football players was a turning point in their lives.
This mentorship team grew, and students with interests other than sports were soon matched with mentors with similar hobbies. This transformational idea soon spread to other communities and states. TeamMates now has chapters in five states and has connected over 45,000 students with mentors.
In addition to serving on the South Dakota board of TeamMates, JC has her own mentee at Central High School in Rapid City. If the thought of becoming a mentor is beginning to intrigue you, JC encourages you to take the leap. “If you can carve out 45 minutes per week, you can have an impact on a student’s life,” she says. “It doesn’t take any special skills or training.”
And JC, who is also the Store Leader at Scheels, points out a huge advantage to mentoring. “Some of the facts and data that we’re collecting now shows that mentors are benefiting just as much as mentees,” she shares. “For an employer, that’s a selling point — employees who feel purpose and are out in the community doing good come back more engaged.”