July 21, 2008
www.northfulton.com
FORSYTH COUNTY -- If you said 30 minutes is not a lot of time, you would be right and wrong.
In the Forsyth County School System, 30 minutes can go a long way when mentoring a child, just ask John Goode.
Goode's last name fits the work he does within the system as a mentor. He has been doing it since 1999 when the program began under the leadership of Forsyth County School System Prevention Specialist Susie LeMieux-Brookshire.
"I became aware of the [mentoring program] through my wife, Ruth, who is the executive director of United Way for Forsyth County," said Goode. "As you would expect, Ruth is deeply involved and committed to our community in many aspects. [LeMieux-Brookshire] runs an excellent program that is highly beneficial to the students in our county."
In becoming a mentor, Goode, who has daughters of his own, sees the work he does as a building block for cultivating developmental assets and producing more productive and happier individuals within our community.
"A mentor serves as a role model, an effective, active listener, who is an advocate, encourager and guide to their mentee," he said, noting his own experience as a parent has helped him as a mentor.
It works well with the relationship and character building he promotes within his own department as a director of sales for AT&T.
"Mentoring people, at work or at school, goes hand in hand," Goode said.
His work for the school system has not gone unnoticed. During 2005 Goode was honored as the mentor of the year by the system's partners in education at their annual luncheon. He continues to serve as a mentor and volunteer his time both as a student mentor and by giving a "man on the street" type of perspective to mentors in training.
"It gives the new mentors the opportunity to ask a mentor what actually happens in the course of a mentoring session and [to go over] some 'what if' scenarios," said Goode. "Since I have mentored at all three levels [elementary, middle and high school] of the school system, I can usually provide some realistic and pragmatic insight."
He "strongly" recommends joining the program to anyone with the slightest interest.
"You're going to give an awful lot, but you're going to get an awful lot back in terms of the good feeling of giving to the community," said Goode. "Some of the new mentors-in-training are kind of worried because they don't want to mess up, they don't want to 'break' anything. But what I tell them is you can't really 'break it.'"
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