Betsy Williams knew the Boone County Mentoring Partnership was needed when a 13-year-old boy told her his girlfriend was pregnant.
“I was teaching at Lebanon Middle School when Boone County Mentoring Partnership was still new and only served up to 5th grade,” she recalls. Williams was the school’s “interventionist”, a term that is what it sounds like: a trusted adult whose job is to intervene before kids can get into trouble or too far off a path everyone knows they ought to be on.
Speaking from an active Habitat for Humanity home build site where people are actively hammering floors, she adds, “The assistant principal and I decided we needed something in the middle school.”
Williams knew the home life of this thirteen-year-old was chaotic, so she mentored him herself. This decision likely provided him with the most stable, consistent presence in his life. It also marked a more robust start of middle school mentoring in Boone County. Before, some middle schoolers had “carry-over” mentors from their elementary years.
“I mentored him through high school,” says Williams.
Still, some kids face mammoth odds. “We got to be close when he told me his girlfriend was pregnant.” We worked together all through that. He emancipated himself at 16. Now he has two kids, a job, and he’s pretty successful.” It’s a tightrope of a situation, but as Williams recognizes, “It’s probably one of the best things that happened to him.” But it’s hard to imagine his life, or his kid’s life, would have been stable without a mentor like Williams.
The start of a new match
Williams continues to keep in touch with her former mentee now that he’s a fully grown adult caring for his family. Now, just a few years later and in her active retirement, Williams is two years into a new match. “Alisha called me and told me she had a sophomore girl — Takayla — and asked if I was interested. I said yes.”
Unlike her prior student, Williams did not know Takayla. “She just moved here a couple of years ago. Even after two years together, it still takes her a little time to warm up and start talking. But once she starts,” says Williams with a slight smile, “She’s good to go!”
It’s easy to lump kids into groups of assumptions and presumed interests, but anyone who spends time around kids knows they’re far more complex. The expectations and differences between William’s two mentees are vast.
“My expectations for him was just to get him through school and a diploma in his hands so he could have a job and the money to raise his family,” says Williams with a sense of determination and pride. “With Takayla, I’m also hoping to get her through school, but her needs are different.”
Ever the educator, Williams recognizes the varying needs of academic challenges some kids face. “For one, she doesn’t like school, so I’m talking to her a lot about what she’s doing in class, how to take notes, and reinforcing the things she does know.” With a slight chuckle, she adds, “When she just took her final [exam], she told me, ‘I really listened and put my phone away and did much better.'” This sort of revelation isn’t news to adults, but it’s the kind of impact mentors can have in just an hour or so a week, along with periodic text messages.
Mentors are not academic coaches, although that can certainly be a part of their relationship. Williams and Takayla frequently make time to get together at Starbucks (she likes “the fancy drinks”) and review homework. School is a large part of a child’s life, after all. But just exploring the world and doing new things can be a huge boost to confidence, character, and life skills. “Everyday things, everyday knowledge, like navigating around town or using new tools matter,” says Williams.
“She loves to shop, even window shopping,” says Williams. “We’ll go just to look around sometimes. And we just got back from Holiday World with a friend of hers, who I knew from school. Just a girl’s road trip,” she says, smiling. The pride she feels in connecting with kids is what you would expect from someone with the heart of a teacher. Long road trips and taking friends of friends is not the norm for most mentor relationships, but one Williams is happy to embrace.
“Takayla’s a senior now and she’s about to age out of the program, but with her mom’s permission, we’ll continue to get together.” Like her first match several years ago, it’s clear Williams is going to see this through all the way to earning a diploma.
Williams recognizes her mentoring experience is atypical. Still, she says, “Mentoring is not difficult. You can make it what you want. You’re only required an hour a week, and how much you make a child’s life better is up to you. And they make your life better, too. I wanted to help these two, and when I got closer to them I realized how much they have to teach me. You see what their life is like. One person might like school because it’s the safest place they’ll be all day. Another might not. But you see how kids come from such different places, what they lack, what they dream of, what they need. It really opens your mind.”
“I’m so thankful that this program exists,” says Williams. I know we have a lot of kids on the list who don’t have a mentee, especially older kids. They need all of us.” As of Summer 2025, there are 20 kids ranging from age 8 to 16 waiting for a match. You can create a blueprint for your mentorship match by starting an application.