Renewing minds while renewing the earth

February 2007

By Diccon Hyatt

Trenton Downtowner

The walls of the MentorPower office in Lawrenceville are lined with photos of the hundreds of Trenton-area students who have gone through its mentoring program in the last 13 years. All of them graduated from high school, three quarters went on to college.

And Maureen Quinn, the director of MentorPower and one of three employees, remembers most of them, their names, and what has become of them since they have completed the program.

In the photos, the teens are doing things like designing hot air balloons, counting microbes in swamp water and teaching elementary school classes.

“They love it,” Quinn says proudly. “Put them in a tough situation and challenge them and they’ll learn.”

Sometimes it’s not hard to keep track of them, because they keep coming back to be mentors themselves or just to say hi, like the woman who burst through the door while Quinn was being interviewed by a reporter and gave her a hug.

The Mentor Power program is about linking high school students with a mentor in the field of science or the environment.

Mentor Power recruits from the average, not the honors, classes in school. The goal is to find students who have potential, but who might not have otherwise become involved in the fields of science, technology, or the environment.

“We’re not social workers, but we’re interested in creating for kids … a way to transcend the obstacles in their life and help them succeed. We have some really smart kids that leak in from the top, and a couple who are really difficult that come in through the bottom, but the general idea is helping the average kid who’s pretty well ignored,” she said.

For 2007, the nonprofit group has hooked up about 70 teams of mentors and mentees and given each a project to work on over the course of the year.

The official kickoff of the program wasn’t until Jan. 16, but the Friday before that, Keith Paysinger and mentor Phil Duran were hard at work at Trenton Central High School, building an electric race car. Two other TCHS students, Karisa Williams and Ricardo Garcia have also joined the project.

That Friday afternoon, they were working on a number of technical problems with the car, trying to prepare it for an Electrothon competition in June where they will try to get the most speed and endurance out of a 67-pound lead-acid battery over a quarter-mile road course at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut. Competing against other high schools throughout the region, the TCHS team must see how many laps they can make in an hour, with a switch in drivers halfway through.

Paysinger and his teammates had the back wheel of their tiny three-wheeled vehicle off the ground so they could correct a problem with the rear wheel clearing the other mechanical parts. According to the rules of the race, the drivers of the vehicle must weigh exactly 180 lbs, making up any difference with lead weights if they come up short. The driver actually weighs more than the car itself.

The team was trying to figure out how to reduce friction on the front wheels, and learn how to change drivers in the cramped cockpit within 30 seconds.

It was a hands-on, technical project. The perfect MentorPower project.

Every team gets to choose its own project to work on, based on the interests and skills of the mentor and mentee. Quinn said she tries to steer them towards the concrete and empirical.

“I can’t tell you how many psychology projects I’ve turned down,” she said.

For example, a student interested in the environment might team up with a scientist from the state Department of Environmental Protection and learn how environmental science can be used to help solve crimes.

Last year, students worked with architects from a local firm to design school layouts.

MentorPower has relationships with a number of local companies, including Bristol Meyers-Squibb and Educational Testing Services.

Duran, a geothermal and geophysical scientist, is the founder of Lawrenceville geological survey company Envirophysics. Last year, he worked with Paysinger on a project to take an old house and convert it to using geothermal power.

The environmental focus of many of the projects is a legacy of the group’s heritage. It started as EnvironMentors in 1992, and changed to MentorPower in 2003, with a broader focus on science and technology.

Students get a chance to show off their work to the public every year at the MentorPower fair when they present the results of their projects. They also teach to an elementary school class, which Quinn considers to be one of the most valuable parts of the program.

Like all the mentors, Duran has gotten to know Paysinger over the past two years, and describes him as a technically minded student.

Paysinger loves cars, which is why he chose the electric car project to work on. Though the project is not in Duran’s field of expertise, he still helps his charge solve mechanical problems.

Mary Sue Henifin has been a mentor for three years. She has helped two Trenton High School students graduate and move on to college, where she still stays in touch with them and offers her advice.

This year, she has taken on the role of mentor for Christina Blanche, a TCHS Freshman. They plan to work on answering the question “Can plants help cure cancer?”

But, Henifin said, it’s about more than just doing a scientific project.

Henifin, a lawyer for Buchannan Ingersoll and Rooney in Princeton, is an example for the students of a woman who worked her way through college and graduate school and became a business lawyer.

Henifin said she had coached girls soccer teams many times and had seen firsthand how many teens were hungry for caring adult interest and support. She became a mentor three years ago, and is now on the MentorPower board of directors.

“It’s incredibly rewarding,” she said. “To see kids make progress toward their dreams –there’s nothing more rewarding than that.”

For more information on being a mentor or a mentee, call (609) 278-5844 or visit mentorpowernj.org.