HUMAN ELEMENTS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

DAVID MERREFIELD

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- There are three key human elements in the Wegmans-developed Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection: The student, the advocate and the in-store mentor. What's the difference, and what do each of these players contribute toward helping at-risk students successfully obtain a high school degree, and, in many cases, go on to college?

To find out, SN interviewed each one of the players at a Wegmans supermarket here. Interviewed were Brian Wiggins, a student worker, Bob Van Alstyne, a school-based advocate with the Hillside program and Sarah Beadling, a Wegmans in-store mentor.

Van Alstyne and Beadling work with student Wiggins, among others. Van Alstyne explained that his commission is to work with his caseload of 30 students in a bid to help them work through any life situation that could negatively impact their chance to graduate from high school. Although school-based, his work often takes him outside the school and into the family at all hours.

"My goal is to have students who are at risk to stay in school and graduate. Some of the approaches to that is to work with them developmentally. To have them understand that adolescence has a role attached to it that includes a place in family, work and society. "[Student worker] Brian's role in the family is to be the son. Here at work, his role is to be a Wegmans employee. I help students understand they are individuals, but there are roles they play. I feel the difficulties students confront with their identities are lessened if they understand their roles in society. This approach seems to work."

Van Alstyne's advocacy, then, goes across family, workplace or whenever situations arise that might challenge a student's chances for success.

Asked what kind of situations might develop and what resources he might bring to bear, Van Alstyne, without any particular individual in mind, said that a student might encounter issues concerning getting along with siblings.

"I might get such a student involved in reading to and tutoring younger people at a YMCA so the student could come to understand that with some effort, it's possible to get along with younger children."

Workplace mentor Beadling's charge is to help Wiggins perform successfully in his role as Wegmans worker.

"I've been working with Brian for a couple of years," she told SN. "My role is to give Brian tools he needs to be successful in his job and be sure he has a good understanding of his role as an employee. We make sure he maintains a good balance between his schoolwork and the hours he puts in at Wegmans so he's not overloaded with so many responsibilities at the store he can't succeed at school.

"We communicate on a regular basis. We try to identify areas of the store where he has an interest. We recently got him into the dairy department for a while. I'm Brian's 'go-to' person."

Asked to cite what type of discussions her mentoring might require, Beadling said, "We talk about Brian's grades. We talk about his plans for the future - he would like to be a pilot. We talk about scheduling, areas of interest. He's a cashier. He wants to get involved in stocking. When he's 18, he wants to move to a fresh-perishable department to get further food knowledge."

Beadling, and other in-store mentors, are Wegmans employees with job responsibilities of their own. They volunteer to take on the extra work of being a mentor, but largely accomplish that task on paid hours.

Asked about his schedule and work, Wiggins told SN that "I usually work around 15 hours. I come in after school and work three hours. Fridays I work four hours. Saturdays I work as needed, up to eight hours. I don't work Sundays lately because I've been going to church."

Asked if he might see a career in a supermarket company, notwithstanding his ambition to be a pilot, Wiggins said it's a possibility. "Yes. I've been reading magazines about perishable foods," he said." I would like to work there and go as high in a career as I can."

Wiggins is a student at Rochester's School Without Walls, a program that allows students to gain credit for work, training outside the classroom and perhaps college-level courses, assuming that certain academic basics are met. Van Alstyne is based at the school.

Each student in the Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection must be involved in community-service projects, an activity that may also confer academic credit.