Mentors and Mentees

Older S.T.A.R.s are expected to teach younger S.T.A.R.s how to work and behave at Atlanta Youth Lacrosse. Our older S.T.A.R.s exhibit excellent leadership skills and we encourage them to impart their knowledge to younger volunteers.

Atlanta Youth Lacrosse is primarily a teaching organization and we make no distinction between lacrosse and work because life lessons abound from either pursuit. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to combine our love of lacrosse and solid work ethics to our program so we get the best of both worlds and our volunteers gain valuable knowledge from those that come before them.

We honestly require that older S.T.A.R.s teach younger S.T.A.R.s because it allows older volunteers to learn how to lead and younger volunteers to learn how to follow, and both are skills they will need as they grow older. The best way to describe the relationships we are cultivating is to use the analogy of camp counseling. Our older S.T.A.R.s are the counselors and our younger S.T.A.R.s are the campers. The younger S.T.A.R.s work diligently in all of the jobs they are assigned but they are inevitably drawn to specific jobs that interest them, this is where our older S.T.A.R.s come in.

Let's say that a young S.T.A.R. wants to learn how to officiate a lacrosse game an older S.T.A.R. will take the younger one under his wing and teach him the basics of officiating. Over the course of a few weekends the younger S.T.A.R. learns the basics of officiating while shadowing the older S.T.A.R. Eventually, the younger S.T.A.R. is confident enough to officiate games himself with the older S.T.A.R. maintaining a watchful eye over his progress. Over a period of a few years the younger S.T.A.R. becomes one of the best officials for Atlanta Youth Lacrosse and begins teaching another S.T.A.R. who wants to officiate.

This cycle of learning and teaching is the backbone of the S.T.A.R. program and allows Atlanta Youth Lacrosse to maintain a large crew of volunteer kids.