UC Med Mentors is a non-profit youth mentoring organization in the UC College of Medicine. We pair medical students with local school children in grades 2-6. We partner with the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, a United Way agency affiliate, which works with school resource officers to find students in need of tutoring and mentoring and provides training and support for parents and mentors. The program serves as a cultural exchange, with mentors and mentees participating in all that Cincinnati offers - sports, the zoo, the aquarium, outdoor activities, movies, restaurants, and much more. The program was founded in 2001 by Dr. Wan Lim, Professor Emeritus of Anatomy. Each year we have up to 200 medical students mentoring 100 CPS children.
UC Med Mentors have been impacting medical students and school children in positive ways for 20 years. The children demonstrate improvement in grades, school attendance, behavior, and sense of responsiblity. Each year 10 to 20 students are awarded laptop computers to enhance their educational experience. The laptop giveaway ceremony has brought positive publicity to UC COM through local media coverage. The medical students learn about children facing adversity in Cincinnati and demonstrate improvement in cultural humility as measured by self-rating surveys. We started a companion elective in the College of Medicine, which explores the challenges children face - adverse childhood experiences, social determinants of health - and the role mentoring can play in mitigating their impact.
Donations to the UC Med Mentors Endowed Fund will help pay for local experiences, laptops, and potentially more extensive out-of-town experiences. In the past, groups of students have taken day trips to the COSI museum in Columbus and a weekend trip to Chicago. This is especially moving for some of our students who have never left Cincinnati.
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UC and UC Health employees can give via payroll deduction today.
| Rank | State | Gifts |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | OH | 7 |
| 2 | WA | 5 |
| 3 | CA | 3 |
