Cincinnati Youth Collaborative honors outstanding mentors

Cincinnati Youth Collaborative recognized Trinitii Brewer last week on National Thank Your Mentor Day with its 2015 Outstanding Mentor Award.
 
Brewer has served as a mentor for the past 10 years — ever since she started working at Luxottica, where employees engage in a collaborative program with CYC and Cincinnati Public’s Withrow University High School in which students travel to Luxottica once a month to have lunch with their mentors.
 
She’s worked with five mentees thus far and maintained what she says are “very different” yet “fun” and impactful relationships.
 
“Some I’ve helped with homework, helped with projects. Others, it’s been helping her get ready for prom, it’s all across the board,” Brewer says. “There have been some I wouldn’t see super often, but she’d call all the time just needing advice on everyday life things. You just don’t know what kind of relationship you’re going to have with your mentee.”
 
For Brewer, the most important aspect of the mentor/mentee relationship is the different perspective each has to offer.
 
“I can’t say it’s just a matter of teaching them stuff — schoolwork — some are smart on their own and don’t necessarily need assistance in that type of thing,” Brewer says. “It might be a life experience you’re offering them that they’ve never seen before, or when they come to Luxottica and see people coming to work every day they get that sort of insight like, ‘Oh, OK, this is what it looks like to be dressed for work.’”
 
Do Good:

•    Encourage your workplace to engage in mentorship.

•    Support Cincinnati Youth Collaborative by donating.

•    Become a mentor.