AOK Mentoring & Tutoring: Building Futures Through Mentorship

AOK Mentoring & Tutoring is a vital lifeline for underserved youth, providing personalized mentorship to help elementary school students succeed academically and emotionally. Inspired by a vision to uplift communities, the organization pairs children with dedicated volunteers who offer tailored guidance. AOK’s mission ensures that every student receives the support they need to thrive.

Through close collaboration with schools, parents, and community leaders, AOK Mentoring & Tutoring integrates mentorship seamlessly into students’ lives. By seeking diverse volunteers who connect culturally with the youth they serve, the organization fosters meaningful relationships that inspire confidence and aspiration. AOK’s individualized approach helps students navigate challenges and build a brighter future.

Over 21 years, AOK Mentoring & Tutoring has grown from a small idea into a cornerstone of community support, touching hundreds of lives. We hope that our modest small grant award will help to further the mission of delivering mentorship to those who need it most. We put some questions to AOK Mentoring & Tutoring Executive Director Allison Smith to learn more about this work.

Kars4Kids: AOK Mentoring & Tutoring was born from a vision to support youth in underserved communities through mentorship. What inspired the late Chaya Kaplan to start this journey, and how has that original spark guided your work?

Allison Smith: Chaya Kaplan was a powerhouse and an inspiration. I’d like to invite anyone to read about her background on her own journey and work on the AOK Mentoring & Tutoring blog. She will be truly missed, and we are honored to carry on her legacy.

Kars4Kids: The AOK Mentoring & Tutoring program offers weekly mentoring and tutoring for students in elementary school. Can you walk us through what a typical session looks like and how you tailor it to each student’s needs?

Allison Smith: While each student’s session is extremely customized to their needs and goals, based on the information that families, teachers, counselors give us, and what the mentor observes and can provide, each session always includes a few elements – a warm welcome by the mentor, a review of topics and conversations they had last time (a catch-up), the core-content time (this may be homework, subject-area review, or conversations about non-academic subjects like bullying or home life), and usually, a time for the student and mentor to freely choose an activity related to their goals, whether it be a game, flashcards, a favorite book, or something else of the student’s choosing.

Kars4Kids: Your impact page mentions serving over 300 youth and providing 5,000+ mentoring hours. What’s one story from those hours that really captures the difference AOK Mentoring & Tutoring makes in children’s lives?

Allison Smith: Sharing specific details is difficult when confidentiality is required, but we have had students who came to us at a time when their family was coping with a loss of housing, a medical crisis, a parental death, or even a case of bullying, and then got feedback that the stability of our mentors, and their constant, positive, caring attention played a vital role in keeping the student on track to success and good mental health.

Kars4Kids: Volunteer mentors are vital to the AOK program. What’s your favorite part about seeing volunteers connect with students, and how do you help those relationships thrive?

Allison Smith: Our mentors are truly experts. They are often retired and have very impressive work and scholarly credentials. So, seeing students have 1:1 access to someone who is, for example, a pediatrician, or a retired principal, or a long-serving employee of a cool government agency, it really inspires me. Our mentors have one goal: to give students a good experience at school and in life. That’s it. They want them to succeed in whatever way that means for them. So, mentors’ hearts are full of joy, empathy, and an eagerness to provide gentle guidance to support the student in the precise way that they need it.

Kars4Kids: It can be a challenge to reach students who need consistent support, especially in underserved areas. What’s been the toughest hurdle to overcome, and how do you keep pushing forward?

Allison Smith: Our biggest challenge right now is finding volunteers from diverse backgrounds. We want to bring mentors into school communities in a way that they can relate to their mentees on a cultural-social level, and we know from feedback that that is what students and school leadership want, as well. We strongly encourage folks of every kind to sign up to volunteer. Kids need to see that people who look like them can achieve great things, and that someone great believes in them and their potential.

Kars4Kids: Partnerships with parents, schools, and community leaders are important to the work of AOK Mentoring & Tutoring. How have these relationships helped you reach and support your AOK Scholars?

Allison Smith: Our school partners are the foundation of what we do. School leaders, counselors, and teachers are the front line of student success. They facilitate mentoring by connecting kids with our program, and they provide a space and time for us to do so, right there on campus, so the parent doesn’t have to coordinate, drive, schedule, anything. The parent plays a vital role, as well. They either make the recommendation, or endorse it. Community leaders see the great benefits of AOK and have given us so much support in both fundraising and helping us grow, joining our Board of Directors, our Advisory Board, or volunteering themselves!

Kars4Kis: For you or the team, what’s been the most rewarding moment of seeing AOK Mentoring & Tutoring grow from a small idea into a program impacting hundreds of kids?

Allison Smith: Seeing heads nodding and people smiling when I introduce myself as being with AOK Mentoring & Tutoring in public settings always gives me a thrill. It means, over 21 years, AOK Mentoring & Tutoring has left a tremendous impression on the community where I live. I feel proud of that.