Troubled Youth Can Use a Few Good Mentors

When Gayle Wilson spoke about her husband, Pete, at a Children’s Hospital of Orange County mentoring conference on Thursday, we learned that the governor is strong in English, but his algebra days are well behind him.

And when the governor of California followed her to the podium, he opined, between plaudits for her, that she can also be “a bit of a smartass.”

Such affectionate public candor from someone with presidential ambitions says much about the close relationship the Wilsons share. The governor and his wife were in Orange County to push their goal of recruiting “one-quarter of a million” mentors in the state for at-risk youth by 2000.

Pete Wilson suggested “it has to start one kid at a time.” The Wilsons are trying to set an example: The governor and his wife are serving as team mentors for a young Sacramento man. Gayle Wilson suggests a team approach to mentoring if it makes you more comfortable, or something you’d like to do as a couple.

Mentoring isn’t difficult to define: It just means being a responsible adult in the life of someone who isn’t used to having a whole lot of responsible adults around.

How’s Orange County doing on mentoring? The county’s Community Development Council has taken a lead role by setting up what it calls the Community Mentor Partnership of Orange County, now in its second year. It helps companies that want to establish a plan for allowing their employees to mentor young people as part of their duties. Alan Woo, the partnership’s planning director, said it has about 1,000 mentors right now--with a balance of men and women. But it has a goal of 2,500 by the year 2000--one-100th the Wilson goal.

Young people who need mentors, he said, come from referrals from the county Probation Department and other social agencies or private groups that deal with youth. “Unfortunately, there is always a waiting list,” he said. “Sometimes it takes us up to 18 months to hook up a young person with a mentor.”

Julio & Pete: The governor got a chance to meet Julio at CHOC. He’s the barrio character played by Susie Vanderlip of Orange in her Legacy of Hope show, which tours across the country.

Vanderlip is my idea of a mentor. She’s been volunteering her time to the Community Development Council to help establish its mentoring program. Her show addresses drugs, alcohol, teen pregnancy and loneliness, through dance and a host of characters such as Julio. It was a huge hit Thursday with the corporate and government leaders at CHOC. I’ve seen it three times now; if your school hasn’t sought Vanderlip’s show yet, I recommend it.

The Reading: Today is one of those very special days in Mission Viejo that you’ll likely never forget if you live there.

Beginning at 10 a.m., in the courtyard of the new Mission Viejo Library at 25209 Marguerite Parkway, volunteers will begin reading the honor roll of names of the 58,169 men and women who were killed during the Vietnam War. City officials estimate it will take 219 volunteers 96 consecutive hours to read the list. The effort will wind up with a ceremony at the Veterans Memorial at the city Community Center on Tuesday, which is Veterans Day.

An honor guard, a rifle detail and musicians from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station will be included in today’s ceremonies. One of the speakers will be Mayor William S. Craycraft, a Vietnam veteran who had the idea for all this.

Said the city’s JoAnn Corey, who coordinated it: “We didn’t have any trouble at all getting volunteers. We thought it might be tough finding people for those wee hours of the morning, but young Marines and Vietnam veterans quickly volunteered for those hours.”

Riding High: Some of the more prestigious honors in Orange County are the Amelia Earhart Awards given annually by the UCI Extension Women’s Opportunities Center. They’re for people who have broken barriers to enhance opportunities for women. The recipients are usually women, but not always. And this year there is a new award for corporate leadership.

The center is looking for candidates countywide for its 1998 awards. The nomination deadline is Feb. 6. Call the center at (714) 824-5164 if you think you know someone deserving.

Water Danger: Thursday I wrote about local people involved in fighting disease. This column can’t become a forum for every illness out there, but Lisa Lovil of Irvine wrote me such a moving letter about her husband’s death two months ago, I’d like to pass on her warning.

Her husband, Thaddeus Crandall, just 29, had a seizure while watering his garden. He wound up drowning in just the small amount of water that accumulated in the garden before help could arrive. Writes Lovil:

“I have racked my brain and searched my heart in an effort to find a way to inform those with seizure disorders about the danger of water. . . . My husband and I understood the dangers of a swimming pool, or bathtub, even not to shower when home alone. But watering the garden? . . . To those with a seizure disorder, water of any kind is dangerous. Please be extra careful.”

Wrap-Up: Here’s a mentoring program, set up by the Orangewood Children’s Foundation, that deserves a boost:

It’s called “On My Own.” The foundation finds jobs for people in foster care who are 16 to 24 years old and once lived at Orangewood, the county’s home for neglected or abused children. The program hooks them up with businesses that not only employ them, but assign mentors to them.

Edgar M. Diaz, the program’s coordinator, said, “We want these youths to learn what it takes to maintain a job. Many of them are now at the point where they’ve got to go out and live on their own.”

Once again, Diaz has more foster care youths than he has businesses signed up to hire them. If you want to volunteer your business, you can reach him at (714) 741-9376.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to [email protected]