When Robert Sponseller agreed to mentor Aiken High School senior Eric Stevenson in 1987, the General Electric manager figured he might be helping one kid get into college.
What he couldn't have known was that his commitment would live on today - 10 years later - in an Ann Arbor, Mich., community center and a California town.
''It's a low-risk opportunity with an almost guaranteed big payoff,'' Mr. Sponseller says. ''Most of us are capable of mentoring.''
That's the pitch the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative will make during a Sept. 8 telethon designed to recruit mentors for the 1,000 Cincinnati Public School students waiting for one. The goal of Role Call '97: Stand Up and Be Counted On is to create a pool of 2,000 mentors - 1,000 for high school students and 500 each for middle and elementary school students.
''One person can truly make a difference,'' project director Miriam West says.
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If you're interested
Qualifications to become a mentor through the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative:
Age: 18 years or older. No residency requirement.
Time commitment: A mentor must be involved with the mentee for a minimum of one year and maintain weekly contact. The number of hours each week is flexible.
Information: 475-4959.
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The collaborative, which marks its 10th anniversary this year, can point to hundreds of mentoring success stories. During the 1996-97 school year, 985 students had mentors through the CYC program.
During the previous school year, the most recent for which data is available, Cincinnati students with mentors performed better in English, math and social studies than members of a non-mentored control group. Students with mentors were absent fewer days, and their dropout rate was half that of students in the control group.
In urban schools, where many students come from single-parent homes and one guidance counselor is responsible for as many as 600 students, mentors provide hope through one-on-one attention, according to the U.S. Department of Education's A Guide for Establishing Mentor Programs.
''A mentor can help a child with many problems that affect life at home and at school - alienation, loneliness, low self-esteem, poor work habits, lack of basic skills and lack of information about the community and work world,'' the report reads.
And a mentor can plant seeds of compassion. That's what Mr. Sponseller did.
Grateful for the difference his mentor made in his life, Mr. Stevenson returned to his alma mater after college as a volunteer. He has another mentee waiting in Atherton, Calif., where he'll be in September when he starts working in nearby East Palo Alto as assistant to the city manager.
His first mentee, though, was Steve Clay, Aiken Class of 1992. He earned a football scholarship to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti and will complete his criminal justice degree there in December. Mr. Clay plans on a career as a police officer but, in the meantime, volunteers at an Ann Arbor community center.
''I hear myself saying things that Eric said to me,'' says Mr. Clay, 23, a former all-Mid-American Conference wide receiver and kick returner with the Eagles. ''I'm always telling these kids that no dream is out of their reach.''
One mentoring generation earlier, Mr. Stevenson - fresh out of Oxford's Miami University with a business degree in 1991 - was using different words to emphasize the same point: ''You're only as good as you try to be.''
''Mr. Sponseller always told me I belonged in college, that it was a reality and not some fantasy,'' says Mr. Stevenson, 28, who recently earned a master's degree in public administration from Baruch College of the City University of New York.
His mentor was in charge of recruiting mentors for General Electric's partner-in-education school - Aiken - and figured he'd better set an example.
''In Eric, I got a kid who was a lot better off than a lot of his classmates because he had two parents at home,'' says Mr. Sponseller, 58, of West Chester. ''From the time I met him I figured he would be successful. He just didn't know it yet.''
Their goal was established quickly: Get Eric into a good college. Together they attended regular college-preparation fairs and seminars at Aiken.
''He was instrumental in helping me with the financial aid process,'' Mr. Stevenson says of his mentor. ''His son went to Miami, and he took me up there to meet him. I decided that day I wanted to go to Miami.''
Mr. Sponseller recalls the meeting.
''I bought Eric and (son) Bob lunch and sat back and listened to them talk,'' he says. ''Eric was asking, 'What's it like to have a roommate? What's it like to share a bathroom with 20 other guys?' Later on, it was pretty easy for me to help him make contacts, to write a resume.''
Kenneth Stevenson, Eric's father, appreciated the role his son's mentor played.
''I wish I would have had a mentor when I was coming up,'' says Mr. Stevenson, 54, a computer technician who has an associate degree. ''Eric learned so much from that guy. Eric would have done well, but I think it would have been more difficult for him without a mentor. That relationship is why Eric is so far ahead of the game now.''
After graduating from Miami, Eric Stevenson came home to College Hill to take a management training job with a Blue Ash company. His second move was to volunteer as a mentor.
''The best way to show the success of the program was to get involved from the other end,'' he says.
He was matched with Steve Clay, who was a star on the Aiken football team but was struggling to stay out of trouble off the field.
''Steve's friends were in and out of the criminal justice system,'' says his mother, Bernita Clay, now 42 and living in College Hill. ''Without a father in the house, Steve needed Eric to help him steer away from trouble.''
Mr. Stevenson introduced his mentee to Mr. Sponseller, who took them on a tour of GE's Evendale plant.
''That made a big impression on Steve,'' says Ms. Clay, a nurse at University Hospital. ''He saw part of the world he hadn't seen before.''
Mr. Clay remembers his mentor taking him on a tour of the Miami campus.
''I want to go to Miami, but they didn't offer me a scholarship,'' he says. ''Eric showed me what to expect in college. He kept telling me I would succeed in life. When a couple of my friends got in trouble, Eric kept me focused on the future.''
His personal experience as a mentee - coupled with his criminal justice education - has taught Mr. Clay a lesson. He's a volunteer counselor at a recreation center in Ann Arbor.
''These kids are in trouble. They don't have any parents at home, and they're out there running wild, but they're not bad kids,'' says Mr. Clay.
''That's why we need more mentors. I know a mentor can change a life.''
