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The National Mentor Summit was held at the Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Grand Californian Hotel on October 15-18, 2001. Over 1000 people attended the events throughout the week, beginning with a pre-conference legislative hearing hosted by State Senator Betty Karnette. The Summit concluded with meetings and awards for the California of the Office For the Secretary of Education. Conference activities over the course of the 4-day Summit included plenary sessions, workshop training sessions, and a closing Dinner Gala with Disney entertainment.
The California Mentor Foundation was delighted to produce the Summit in conjunction with the California Governor's Mentoring Partnership and The National Mentoring Partnership.
RE-CAP OF EVENTS
The Tuesday, October 16 opening plenary session featured filmmaker George Lucas, football star Lynn Swann, First Lady of California Sharon Davis, UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang, Director of Public Affairs for AARP Suzanne Miller, California Director of Alcohol & Drug Programs Kathy Jett, Vice-President of Bear Stearns Allan Schwartz, President of the California Mentor Foundation Dr. Andy Mecca, Director of the California Governor's Mentoring Partnership Dr. Jim Kooler, and performances by students from The Learning Zone Program at Sun View School in Huntington Beach and from the Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles with their mentor, Tom Sturges, of Universal Music Publishing.
During Tuesday afternoon, all attendees were invited by Disneyland to attend the new "California Adventure" theme park as complimentary guests.
On Wednesday, October 17, the morning and noon plenary sessions welcomed several exciting guests and performers, including: inspiring mentor-mentee matches; "Spirit of Mentoring" award winners; a panel including business leaders Michael Bagley of Verizon, Donna Lucas of NCG Porter Novelli, Jill Bolton of Disneyland Resort, Greg Jones of State Farm, and Seth Richman of Acccenture; Dr. Kevin Starr, California State Librarian; California State Senator Jack O'Connell; and Dean Andre & son Ian Wallschlaeger performing an original song;
Thursday morning's plenary session on October 18 included actress Victoria Rowell; California Youth Authority "Mentor Award" winners; Perry Kenny, President of the California State Employees' Association; Richard Kai, Deputy Director of the California Youth Authority; and some impressive young people representing the strength of mentoring.
Summit week ended with a closing Dinner Gala hosted by Disneyland Resort with a special mentoring performance planned exclusively for the Summit audience. Melissa Fitzgerald of "The West Wing" served as emcee with guests including Lisa Hughes of Hughes & Sullivan Attorneys At Law, a mentor-mentee match, and an outstanding youth performance by Sarah Rice and Amy Longstreth of Cordova High School in Sacramento.
WORKSHOPS
Workshop Training Sessions throughout the week covered multiple topics and presenters including foster youth, academic mentoring, business partnerships, youth development, creative mentoring, program sustainability, peer mentoring, online mentoring, youth in the juvenile justice system, faith-based mentoring, scorecard tool training, and numerous others. Workshops were managed by EMT Group, or Evaluation, Management, and Training, through a contract with the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, and we thank EMT once again for their outstanding work in coordinating so many fabulous presenters and panelists and in constructing so many information and education-packed workshop sessions.
THANK YOU
Thank you to all of you who contributed so much of your time, energy, and resources to make this Summit a huge success. Thanks also to Disneyland Resort and The Walt Disney Co. for their enormous generosity again this year, along with all of our incredible sponsors, including: NCG Porter Novelli, Accenture, AARP, Loews Hotels, Kikkoman Foods, The Capital Group Companies, Inc., Counterpoint Systems, GES Events, HOSTS Corporation, California State Automobile Association, California Chamber of Commerce, Chevron, GAP Foundation, EMT Group, California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, California Office of the Secretary for Education, California GO-SERV, California Department of Health Services, and Peter Green Designs.
Richard Mednick, President of Finger Poppin' Productions, deserves special recognition for bringing all the myriad technical aspects of the Summit together and for serving as our stage management partner for every single session.
THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION, ENTHUSIASM, AND PARTNERSHIP, and we look forward to working with you throughout the year!
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