I can’t say that I found last night’s Super Bowl particularly exciting or satisfying, so I’ll dispense with any of the awkward football references this morning in introducing today’s Y Monday Mission Update.
Today, I’m more interested in focusing on the meaning of family and community, and how the meaning and importance of those things have only come more into focus over the past eleven months. Having a family that embraces you, with all your flaws, is essential to how we see ourselves and our capacity to navigate through an uncertain world. Understanding that the larger community is there to catch you when you fall is a rare and remarkable gift for those who have had the privilege of that phenomenon.
No one needs to tell that to Gabrielle Moore, a senior collections coordinator at Cooley LLP and a Big Brothers Big Sisters at the Y mentor for her “little sister" Caitlin. In the Baltimore Style Magazine article linked below, Gabrielle talks about her grandmother as her inspiration to become a mentor. As she explains it, her grandmother was adopted as a baby, "handed through one car window to another, like a sack of potatoes, on a dark country road. She taught me the idea that family can be much larger than our own blood relatives; she taught me how to offer my love to the world around me."
Read Gabrielle and Caitlin's inspiring story via this link:
So, on this cold day in February, we celebrate Gabrielle and Caitlin and the importance of thinking more expansively about the words “family” and “community.” A steadfast mentor gives a young person a gift that both comforts and challenges, helping to guide the way in a relentlessly confusing world.
To become a mentor or find out more, email our Associate Exec. Director of Mentoring, Tiffany Reinhardt, at tiffanyreinhardt@ymaryland.org. You’ll be glad you did.
Thank you to Gabrielle for your generosity in sharing your and Caitlin’s story and thanks to all the Y mentors like her who go out of their way to "offer their love to the world."
All the best,
John
John K. Hoey
President & CEO
The Y in Central Maryland