Program History
C-U One-to-One started in 1993 when a coalition of educators from the University of Illinois, Parkland College, Rantoul Schools, Champaign Unit 4 and Urbana District #116 brought Dr. Susan Weinberger, director of the Norwalk Mentoring Program (www.norwalkmentorprogram.faithweb.com), to Champaign-Urbana to introduce her concept of school-based mentoring and to train mentors and mentor coordinators.
In 1994 each district chose one school to pilot the program, which officially became known as C-U One-to-One. In 1996 the Mentoring Scholarship Foundation, a chapter of Dollars for Scholars, was formed as the community-based component in the program, making C-U One-to-One a true partnership between the schools and local community. The Scholarship Foundation’s mission is to support and strengthen C-U One-to-One mentoring. Most importantly the Foundation aims to encourage kids to stay in school and stay with mentoring by offering post-secondary scholarships to any student who successfully graduates high school while participating in C-U One-to-One.
Starting with a handful of mentors in 1994, C-U One-to-One had grown to 130 mentor-mentee pairs by 2000. A U.S. Departement of Education cross-district grant awarded to Champaign and Urbana Schools in 2004 enabled the school districts to hire site coordinators for each public elementary school and middle school in Champaign-Urbana. The presence of site coordinators to recruit, screen, place and support mentors enabled the program to grow to over 350 mentor pairs by May, 2007. Because of the proven effectiveness of the program, each district decided to make the mentor/volunteer coordinator positions into district positions in the fall of 2007.