Become a Volunteer with
Commnities in Schools
at West Charlotte High School
CMS Volunteers
The Office of Strategic Partnerships is thankful that you have chosen to return and volunteer your time to assist our students. Your support greatly increases the opportunity to meet the individual needs of each child.
In 2010-11, CMS volunteers donated more than 250,000 hours of volunteer time.
Your time and skills are very valuable to CMS. If you calculate the value of all that time using the United Way standard of $20.65 per hour, it adds up to more than $5 million. That’s certainly one way to measure what our volunteers and partners do – and it’s an impressive figure, for sure! But the truth is, what all of you give us is worth much, much more than money. That figure includes 41,628 hours of tutoring, 15,146 hours of mentoring, and 193,385 hours of helping in countless other ways – PTA, playground builds, tutorial programs, after-school programs, safety, physical fitness and more.
We encourage parents/guardians and other members of the community to share their time, knowledge and abilities with our students. Community volunteers in our schools enrich the educational programs and strengthen our schools’ relationships with families, businesses, public agencies and private institutions.
Again, thank you for making a difference in the lives of students in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
For more information, call 980-343-6618.
Are you a mentor?
“Mentoring—or at minimum connecting with a variety of people in all industries and age groups—has never been more important,” says Pamela Ryckman, author of Stiletto Network: Inside the Women’s Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business.
But it’s a big responsibility.
Ryckman's Tips on being great mentors:
Be committed. Being a mentor is a commitment, Kahn says. “If you’re offering to help someone you need to follow through with that promise by being there for them when needed.”
Listen. One of your jobs a mentor is to provide advice and
encouragement, but in order to do so, you need to make
the time to listen and understand the situation,
Kahn says.
Have patience. Much like parenting, mentoring can be
a satisfying, but also long-term and trying, endeavor,
Parnell says. “While the mentee needs and wants
direction, often times this requires a bit of
constructive criticism, which can be hard to take.
It is vital that a mentor be a patient soul, because
tempers may flare, and quick fixes are few and
far between.”
Leadership, How to Be a Great Mentor,
Forbes Magazine
Mentor, Dr. Daisy R. Walker
Mentee, Aaliyah Wint