Why mentoring matters - Reflecting on 1 year as a volunteer mentor

A little over 12 months ago, I signed up to be a mentor with Connect Kids, a program that matches volunteers with young people on the Sunshine Coast. The commitment is simple: spend time with a young person, whenever suits you both.

A few friends were doing similar programs in other parts of the country, and I wanted to find something local I could genuinely commit to. I also had someone who mentored me when I was a young adult. It wasn’t through a formal program, just someone in my community who cared about building good relationships. It was good for my perspective as a young man, to spend time with people, an older male particularly, who was outside of my family and who did life differently to what I knew. I know what that meant to me at the time. Supporting young people, and young men in particular, felt like a good use of my time. So I looked into what was available, found Connect Kids, and signed up.

The young person I'm matched with is 13. We catch up every couple of weeks. We go fishing. And for the past several months, we've been learning to boulder together.

Learning something together changes the dynamic

Bouldering, climbing short, unroped routes on indoor walls, is something neither of us had done before we started going together. That matters more than it might seem.

When a mentor turns up already skilled at something, the dynamic can feel like instruction. There's a teacher and a student, and it's pretty clear who's who. Bouldering flipped that. We were both beginners. We both fell off the same routes. We celebrated each other's small wins because we understood how hard they were.

What surprised me about bouldering is how much of it happens in your head. Reading a route, committing to a move, trusting your body to do something unfamiliar. It tests your balance, strength, coordination and confidence all in one, and those things don't come automatically. You have to work on your relationship with your own body, figuring out what it can do and pushing past what you think it can't. That's as true for a 13-year-old as it is for someone in their thirties.

There's something about a physical challenge that strips back conversation too. You're not sitting across from each other working out what to say. You're both staring at the same problem on the wall, figuring out the sequence, trying again. The relationship gets built in that space without you having to manufacture it.

It also asks things of you that a café or a park doesn’t: patience, persistence, and the mild fear of trying something new. Those are values better shared by doing than by saying.

What consistency actually looks like

One thing I've thought about a lot is what it means to just show up. Not in a grand sense. Literally: turning up when you said you would, being the same person each time, not making promises you won't keep.

For a lot of young people, that kind of consistency is rarer than it should be. I'm not there to fix anything or play any formal role. But being a steady, reliable presence, someone who follows through, who listens, who models how to treat people, feels like it counts for something.

What I get out of it

Mentoring benefits me just as much as him.  

I wouldn't have learnt to boulder without this. I get to spend time away from screens and deadlines with someone who has a completely different perspective on the world. I leave most of our catch-ups in a better mood than I arrived in.

There's also something that's harder to name. It’s the sense that the time you're spending is genuinely worthwhile. That you're putting your energy somewhere that matters. I care a lot about this young fella and I think he knows that.

The program itself

Connect Kids works well because it doesn't overload the commitment. You're not locked into a rigid schedule or a formal program structure. You just spend time with a young person in a way that works for both of you. That flexibility is what makes it sustainable for people with busy lives.

If you're on the Sunshine Coast and looking for a way to volunteer that's practical, flexible, and meaningful, it's worth looking into. The young people in these programs benefit from having more adults around. And I can confidently say that the volunteer mentors get a lot out of it too.

At The Social Deck, we spend a lot of time thinking about how communities are shaped and what makes them stronger. We love supporting governments, companies and NFPs that are working to make a positive difference. For me, mentoring is where that thinking becomes something personal. One small thread in a much bigger picture, but one I'm glad to be part of.

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