MASSARO: Mentor helps Angels find their wings

Woman cited for pushing at-risk kids to succeed

By Gary Massaro, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

George Kochaniec Jr. / The Rocky

Jefferson Award winner Jessica Pearson, right, talks with student Ealasha Marshbank at East High School in April. Pearson helped found A+ Angels, a program that pairs adult mentors with at-risk students at East.

Linda McConnell / Special To The Rocky

Jessica Pearson, center, with her husband, Jeff, and Valerie McNaughton, a mentor in the A+ Angels program.

Jessica Pearson is an angel to a lot of young people.

She gives of her time and expertise to help struggling students.

She's quick to note that she doesn't do it alone, that she couldn't possibly do it alone.

She is co-founder of A+ Angels, a group of adult mentors paired with struggling students at East High School, whose nickname is the Angels.

Middle schools feed at-risk kids into the tutoring program for their freshman year at East. Some continue with the program through high school.

Graduating is just one goal. Mentors also push their charges toward college.

"I am active because education is the key to personal salvation and societal salvation," said Pearson, a sociologist whose company evaluates social programs. "Without an educated public, we don't have much to look forward to."

Pearson is one of three Colorado Jefferson Award winners for being a super volunteer.

Pearson grew up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn. Her mom and dad encouraged their children to get an education, to stay out of trouble.

So she went to college, ultimately earning a doctorate in sociology from Princeton.

She met her husband, Jeff, who was a student at Columbia, at a student mixer. They settled in Denver.

"We could have lived in the suburbs and been totally insulated from the kinds of problems and social inequality and issues that I was exposed to when I was young," she said. "The alternative is to try to dig in and help out."

So important is her message that she talks 90 miles an hour, her words tumbling out.

Basically, the program works like this: Struggling students are paired with adult volunteers who help the freshmen enroll in a special first-hour study hall. The mentors then come to the study hall to help their charges. Some take students for coffee or to a computer lab or to the library. They talk about homework or home, help the students get organized, work on their vocabulary or math or writing. Some read with and to the students. Some help them with memorization. Some show them how to take notes, how to keep track of assignments.

If they're successful, they end up with students like Ealasha Marshbank and Marion Sneed.

Marshbank, 18, continued with the program through her years at East. She is a senior, ready to graduate.

Her mentor helped her overcome her bad attitude, which led to unruly behavior and suspensions into her sophomore year.

"They never gave up on us," said Marshbank, who has been accepted at Colorado universities, Stanford and Yale.

The mentors communicate with teachers all along the way.

"They knew stuff before we knew," Marshbank said.

Sneed, 18, was another at-risk student who already is taking classes at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

He and Marshbank said they both had contemplated giving up and dropping out, but their mentors prodded and pulled when they needed to.

"They pushed the teachers, too," Sneed said. "They're not just your mentor. They're pretty much your friend."

On a Tuesday evening in a stuffy, acoustically challenged room at East, Pearson was leading a meeting of mentors. She twirled her pen like a majorette does a baton.

Someone talked of troubles with a student who kept missing meetings. "We've all been stood up before," Pearson said.

There are roughly 45 mentors working with about 50 students.

Some of the kids have behavior problems. Some have terrible home lives. Some are just way behind.

The mentors do what they can to help kids who have given up on themselves, doing their best to help them dig out of holes they can't get out of on their own.

Mentors compare notes, offering each other tips that might help, and lend sympathetic ears to hard-luck stories.

"We help a little bit," Pearson said. "In many cases, it's not enough."

After Pearson explains the program, she tries to enlist the listener to volunteer.

Information:Jpear2071@msn. com.

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271

The Jefferson Awards

The Rocky Mountain News is part of a national network of media sponsors of the Jefferson Awards.

* Awards founded: 1972, by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and others.

* Purpose: To recognize individuals who better their communities through volunteer service, exemplifying the ideals of Thomas Jefferson .

Colorado winners:

* Today: Jessica Pearson

* Thursday: Lt. Col. Steve Beck

* Friday: Harry Vogler