A lunch table can change how a kid sees the whole rest of the day.
Once a week, a mentor sits down at a kid's table — in Brunswick and Freeport schools, kindergarten through seventh grade — and just shows up. That's the entire program, and it's also the whole point.
Same mentor. Same day. Every single week.
Mentoring only works if it's predictable. So our in-school programs are built around one simple habit: the same volunteer, showing up on the same day, week after week, for an entire school year.
Some weeks that means Legos and lunch. Other weeks it's just talking. Either way, a student learns that someone chose to be there — not because they had to, but because they wanted to.
Four programs, four ways of paying attention.
Each one is shaped by the age it serves — because what an five-year-old needs from a lunch visit isn't what a thirteen-year-old needs.
Lunch and Legos
A weekly group for sixth-grade boys, built around whatever gets a conversation going, whether that is Lego builds or the occasional card game.
Seventh Grade Girls Group
Eight seventh-grade girls, one weekly meeting, no set agenda. Whatever's actually on their minds — friendships, pressure, family, the future — is what gets talked about.
Freeport Lunch Bunch
Mentors have lunch weekly with students from kindergarten through second grade, making art or playing games — the kind of unhurried company that's hard to come by during a normal school day.
Freeport Lunch Bunch
One mentor, one student, one lunch a week — just the two of them, to talk or play a game. Simple on paper, and often the highlight of a kid's week.
What a weekly lunch actually builds.
Builds Trust
A reliable weekly routine lets students build honest relationships with adults who support and empower their aspirations.
Helps With Social Behaviors
Mentoring builds self-confidence and self-worth, helping students communicate, manage emotions, and connect with peers, teachers, and family.
Different Perspectives
Mentoring gives both mentor and mentee a chance to see beyond their own experience — a bigger, or simply a different, picture.
The whole program runs on people who show up.
No special training or experience required — just an hour a week and a willingness to sit at the table.