Volunteer - Mentor

Vision: 

Helping generations thrive neighborhood by neighborhood 

Mission: 

Sharing God’s love by walking with children cradle to career, supporting their families, and engaging in neighborhood transformation 

Core Values: 

Christ Centered  |  Strategic Relentlessness  |  Nurturing Dignity  |  Excellence  |  Life Together

Dream Center Evansville (DCE) Mentoring Program Information:

We are always searching for volunteers who want to make a difference in the lives of youth through mentoring.  A mentor with DCE is a caring, responsible, Christian adult volunteer who serves as a trusted friend, support, and guide to a vulnerable youth in their community for a period of at least one year.  A mentor builds a relationship based on trust and acceptance with their protégé, which provides a foundation for positive mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical growth.  To invest in the next generation at the Dream Center, we have partnered with the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring to develop a mentoring program.  Mentors and mentees both experience personal transformation in the areas of mental, spiritual, physical and social (Luke 2:52) development through Life-on-Life (1 on 1) Mentoring, and Lunch and Dinner Buddies (small group mentoring. Through these, we are seeking to shape students' identity, purpose, and destiny.

Being a Mentor: building a friendship with a child or youth who is missing either their mother or father in their lives.

Process of becoming a mentor

• Submit written application
• Participate in a personal interview with a DCE staff member
• Agree to a background check
• Attend a new mentor training/orientation session
• Become matched

Responsibilities to protégé and DCE:

• Commit to a one-year mentoring relationship with a protégé.
• Spend time with your protégé monthly for at least 3 hours per month, meeting once a month at minimum. 
• Communicate with your mentoring coach monthly and willingly receive and implement advice.
• Honor all commitments made to your protégé.
• Be a positive role model by demonstrating a faith-filled Christian life.
• Establish appropriate boundaries with your protégé and his/her family as described in our Mentor Orientation.
• Seek to help your protégé find his/her God-given potential through encouragement and support.
• Build a relationship with your protégé based on trust and respect.
• Abide by all of the Mentor Responsibilities and Guidelines listed in the Mentor Orientation.
• Participate in one additional training session or mentor support group each year.

Qualifications – A mentor must: 

• Be at least 21 years of age, living in the vicinity of Evansville or the TriState area for the last 6 months.
• Be actively involved in your church for a minimum of one year.
• Be living in a vital relationship with Christ as demonstrated by:
• Seeking God through prayer, reading the Scripture and fellowship in a local church.
• Pursuing holiness and shunning any obstacle to communion with Christ.
• Seeking to honor Christ in work, relationships, sexuality, and emotions.
• Be able and willing to guide a child into a personal relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ.
• Have a desire to build a genuine and caring relationship with a child.
• Have the physical and emotional health to provide a consistent, caring relationship.
• Have a valid Driver’s License, access to an automobile and auto insurance.

Volunteers are not suitable for mentoring if they:

• Have been cited for driving under the Influence (DUI) in the last 5 years.
• Have been involved in a crime against a vulnerable person (child, disabled mentoring team. adult). 
• Cannot complete their mentoring commitment. Studies show that if a mentor quits before their commitment is up it does harm to the protégé.

Dream Center's Statement of Faith:

• We believe there is only one God, creator of heaven and earth, who exists eternally as three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each fully God, yet each personally distinct from the other.
• We believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible, authoritative word of God.
• We believe all people are created in God’s image and matter deeply to Him. The value and dignity of all people, each created in God's image and yet alienated from God and each other because of our sin and guilt.
  
• We believe Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, who lived as a perfect example, assumed the judgement due sinners by dying in our place, and was bodily raised from the dead and ascended as Savior and Lord.
  
• We believe God's grace justifies all who repent and put their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.
  
• We believe in the presence and transforming power of the Holy Spirit, and the unity of all believers in Jesus Christ.