Huntsman Scholars to help mentor TEAM students

Michael Peine, a sophomore marketing major in the Huntsman Scholar Program, said he looks forward to helping TEAM members gain confidence that they can attend college. This semester, students in the Huntsman Scholar Program, an honors program at Utah State University, are helping TEAM with mentoring. Peine said the Huntsman Scholars will strive for a one-on-one connection with high school students at TEAM and help them prepare for college.

Adam Stewart, one of the group's leaders said, "The Huntsman Scholars Program is centered around mentoring, so helping TEAM is a great way to extend our resources to the community."

Andrew Izatt, another leader, added, "It is wonderful to see our group come together behind a cause and strengthen our community."

Brandon Estoque, a junior marketing major in the program, said the ability to mentor is an important skill for anyone to have, and he looks forward to being able to have a positive impact on others. 

“You get so busy with school and work and trying to keep on top of everything that it’s really nice having something that you’re impacting other people,” Estoque said. “It’s not about you.”

Aniko Pearson is impressed with the excitement and commitment of the TEAM students. She said, "I think it's awesome that these kids are so motivated to participate in the program outside of school."

According to Peine, every semester the scholars focus on a different service project. Sometimes their service is focused on other countries, and other times they are more local. This year, they decided it would be the latter.

“We decided this one would have a lot of impact,” Peine said. Because of their involvement with TEAM, the program has already been able to open a new site that will remain at Logan High and have a heavier focus on academic tutoring. This new site will allow the TEAM Mentoring program to serve 3 specific groups of students whose needs we have not been able to meet up to this point:

• Students who have a difficult time getting to Wilson Elementary,
• Students who need to spend a little more time with the academic tutoring and less time with the enhancement academics like- teambuilding, 4-H and service, and
• Students who have language barriers and special language needs that will really benefit from the one-to-one mentoring.

In addition to mentoring, some of the Huntsman Scholars are helping with other projects to strengthen the program including assisting with the social media campaign, doing the monthly newsletter, writing press releases and other marketing tasks.

"This is a great opportunity to connect with new people and reach out to other organizations within Cache Valley," Sadie Crabb adds.

The Huntsman Scholar Program has already had a tremendously positive impact on TEAM Mentoring and there are plans for many more good things to happen throughout the semester!

THANK YOU, Huntsman Scholars!  

You are making a positive difference!!

The Huntsman Scholar Program is designed to give students academic, leadership and service opportunities that are not typically offered to undergraduates. More details about what they do can be found on this video found on their website, http://huntsman.usu.edu/scholars/: