Some students at Bates Middle School dream of stopping global warming, others of living in expensive houses, and others of being honor roll students. Sheryl Menendez tells them to dream big but reminds them that no dream is too small or too trivial, and then she works with them to make their dreams realities.
Menendez is executive director of the Annapolis-based, nonprofit Restoration Community Development Corp., which founded the Gems and Jewels Mentoring Program for Bates students in 1998 and later for Annapolis Middle School. The program includes a course called Success for Teens, which encourages students to create mental pictures of their aspirations and to work daily to make them possible.
"One of the things that we share with them is that the greatest way to be successful is to fail sometimes," said Menendez, who is also pastor of Light of the World Family Ministries in Annapolis, which launched the Restoration Community Development Corp. "We tell them that they have to make something out of the moment presented to them.
"We had them create what they felt was their dream, with worksheets they filled out," Menendez added. "They had to make a list, and they had to think about it and not worry about something being right or wrong. We're teaching them how to flex what we call their dream muscles."
The students' dreams are placed on paper, framed and filed, and then the frames are presented to them each time they attend the program. "And at the end of each time, they have to say, 'What did I do today to get closer to my dream?'" Menendez said.
Then, Menendez said, the students make what she calls a dream board, consisting of mental pictures of their dreams. "If it is to have a 10-bedroom house, then we're going to find pictures of a 10-bedroom house and put it there," she said.
Menendez said she and her church launched the program after being approached by members of the Annapolis community about a need for a mentoring program for middle-school students. Menendez said that the program began one day a week for about two hours with students at Bates, assisting with homework and social skills.
"We saw that it wasn't enough time to get involved with the students and do the things with them to make them successful, not only academically but socially," said Menendez. She added that with mostly local funding, the program grew to three days a week and also takes students on 20 cultural trips during the school year. About 30 students are now involved, up from about a dozen during the program's inception.
This year, the students are taking trips to such places as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. The students graduate from the program when they head to high school.
"We try to get the students at sixth grade so we can have them through the eighth grade," said Menendez. "We see the best benefit if we can retain them for three years, and usually that takes place."
Alexander Barros, who grew up in Annapolis and now lives in the Boston area, participated in Gems and Jewels for three years at Bates, graduating from the program in 2003. He said that back then, the students would set personal academic goals and were rewarded each time they accomplished those goals.
Barros said he grew up in a tough section of Annapolis and didn't have much interest in school before joining the Gems and Jewels program. Upon joining, he said, "it showed me, 'Hey, this is middle school, and you have to start somewhere.'
"My personal goal was not to be one of the statistics of Annapolis High," added Barros. "Before I got into Gems and Jewels, my report card wasn't the best at all. After I got into the program, my grades started to go up, and I started actually paying attention and being in class more often than anything else."
Menendez said that she relishes working with middle-school students and dealing withall the adolescent issues that come with them.
"That's the age where they're dealing with 'Who am I? Where am I?' They're adult to some extent but still have childlike qualities; they want separation to a degree from their parents. You see the attitude and the sucking of the teeth.
"It's a challenging process," said Menendez, "but I wouldn't want to do anything else."