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Miss Fall River presents NextGen Navigators mentorship and donation drive to subcommittee
Summary
Deelinda “Dolly” Mendez, Miss Fall River, told the Parent & Community Outreach Subcommittee about NextGen Navigators, a school-based mentorship and donation-drive initiative she runs at Westall Elementary and plans to expand to other schools.
Deelinda “Dolly” Mendez, Miss Fall River and a senior nursing student, told the Parent and Community Outreach Subcommittee on May 5 that she runs NextGen Navigators, a weekly mentorship program at Westall Elementary that focuses on career exploration, mental-health awareness and basic school-supply distribution.
Mendez said the program meets during the school day on Fridays with principal-approved students and uses hands-on activities to teach self-esteem, healthy friendships and career pathways. “Every child deserves somebody to look up to, somebody who believes in them, and somebody who helps them see that the city blocks they live on are not the ones that they’re statistically kept in,” she said.
Members of the subcommittee asked about program scope and expansion plans. Subcommittee member Mister Bailey asked how long she had been running the program; Mendez said she started organizing it in December and ramped up in January. She said the program currently operates with her as the lone organizer, with plans to recruit high-school volunteers and to bring more students into leadership roles.
The committee discussed possible supports: retired school staff and district employees offered to observe the program and provide feedback, and members suggested meetings with the superintendent, PACE Center staff and Durfee High School administrators to identify partnership opportunities. Mr. Porte, a retired adjustment counselor, described similar mentoring work he had done and urged the committee to support Mendez’s outreach.
Mendez also said she has been running a school-supplies donation drive and that she and a partner operate a mental-health outreach initiative called Stop the Stigma and Start the Conversation, which distributes coping kits and brochures in schools. The subcommittee encouraged her to meet with district leaders and to return with a fuller presentation for the subcommittee or the full committee in the summer.
The discussion closed with committee members offering to coordinate visits and consider ways the district and community partners can support expanding the program to additional schools.
