There are many positive things happening at Spectrum lately, but all of us are weighed down by the recent news of the horrible death of 12-year-old Brooke Bennett here in Vermont. Any of you who live in this state are well aware of the unfortunate facts, and it has even made some national headlines as well. We do know that this young woman from the town of Randolph was brutally murdered about three weeks ago, and her uncle, Michael Jacques, is the main suspect. Her former stepfather, who now lives in Texas, is also under suspicion as an accomplice. While all the facts are yet to come out, we do know that Mr. Jacques was convicted of raping an 18-year-old woman back in 1993, threatening to kill her if she told, and that he received a sentence of 6 to 20 years, but was let out after only 4 years and placed on probation. His probation was then ended early by 7 years by a judge due to his seemingly-exemplary behavior.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Brooke. It is hard to imagine the excruciating pain they are feeling right now. This whole incident is a terrible reminder of the suffering so many children in our country face. So many of the young people we work with at Spectrum have endured physical and sexual abuse, abandonment and neglect, sometimes right from birth. A little over 10 years ago I directed a residential treatment center in New York for teenagers who were in foster care; it was co-ed, and I would read the Psycho-Social report prepared by a psychologist for each new intake. I could not help but notice the frequency of sexual abuse perpetrated against the female population, so one day I asked one of the senior supervisors at our program, “What percentage of the girls here do you believe were sexually abused?” He looked at me a moment and said, “All of them.”

Our job at Spectrum is to work with adolescents who have suffered much, to help them pick up the pieces of their lives, to help them heal, and to help them create a life of meaning and maybe even happiness. Brooke Bennett will not get such a chance, but there are hundreds more who may.

There is a boy who lives in Burlington, I have known him since he was age 7, he is 11 now. His father lives in another country, he has four siblings, his Mom works a minimum wage job and they are in a public housing project. Four years ago I was concerned about how he would keep himself busy (and out of trouble) during the summer, so my wife came up with the idea of asking the Burlington YMCA to give him and his siblings a scholarship to their day camp in Addison County, Camp Greylock. They generously agreed, and they were there every day for four straight weeks. And I can tell you nearly every day I would receive a phone call from the staff at the Camp, their regular comments being, “He did this today…he did that yesterday…we are really trying to work with him but we don’t know how much longer we can handle him…..” They came very close a number of times to asking him to leave, but to the Y’s credit, they never did, they hung in there with him despite the setbacks and let him stay for all four weeks.

They did not only that, but they gave him, and his siblings, scholarships to Camp Greylock the following summer, and the next, and now this summer. And a few weeks ago when I called the camp staff to tell them this boy was again coming, this was the reaction I got: “That is AWESOME! We love him! Now our main problem will be figuring out which counselor gets him, because they all want him in their group.” I looked at the phone and said, “Are we talking about the same boy? Do you know that four summers ago he was almost bounced out of there daily?” The camp director laughed and replied, “Oh yeah, we remember, but he is a totally different person now, well-behaved, respectful, a real role model for the other kids.”

Well that was one great phone conversation, and reflecting on what has changed for this young man during the last four years, there were a lot of factors, but in my mind one of the chief ones was matching him up with a volunteer mentor two years ago. This has made a major difference. Spectrum runs a mentoring program in which we recruit and train adult volunteers to make a one year commitment to mentor a youth. A friend of my wife and mine signed up two years ago, Spectrum trained him and matched him with this boy, they meet every week or so for a hike, an ice cream cone, play soccer, that sort of thing, and I think that kind of individual attention from a caring, responsible adult has made all the difference in the world. It’s why Camp Greylock is now saying, “We want him!” instead of, “We may have to ask him to leave.”

It’s a great example of what mentoring can do and why we desperately need more mentors in Vermont and throughout the country, why we need more adults to step up to the plate and say, “Yes, I will do this, at least for one year, for a youth.”