Mentor Makes a Mark in a 12-Year-Old’s Life
Kenneth Smith’s mentor arrives at his doorstep with sugarless gum and a boomerang. Kenneth always asks for gum. The boomerang is new. But then David Kobrin always offers up something new for Kenneth to try. Toys are the least of it.
In the last year, since Kobrin entered 12-year-old Kenneth’s life, the South-Central Los Angeles seventh-grader has seen Cirque du Soleil, sat in the cockpit of a jet airliner, watched for whales from a boat and attended a taping of the sitcom “Family Matters.”
Kenneth loved that. “It was the first time I saw real live people,” he says. Actors, he means.
He even met a movie star--Tom Hanks on a location shoot for his current movie, “That Thing You Do.”
Kenneth opens his little photo album to display a picture of Hanks standing smiling between Kenneth and his mentor. Kobrin memorializes in photographs everything they do.
There are few rules to the mentoring process that takes place between the two. Kobrin’s work is just one example of the activity that community leaders have long called for and that Gov. Pete Wilson again promoted this week at a conference when he urged Californians to become mentors. Last spring, Wilson announced the formation of the California Mentor Initiative to recruit 250,000 role models for at-risk youngsters.
*
“I think it’s just a nurturing friendship,” says Kobrin, a 36-year-old teacher’s assistant at Loyola Village Elementary School in Westchester, of his relationship with Kenneth. Kobrin does his mentoring under the auspices of a local volunteer counseling and crisis service called Family Helpline.
Every Thursday, Kobrin meets Kenneth for about an hour to talk or review homework (when Kenneth will let him).
“We read, do math, talk,” says Kenneth.
The special outings occur anywhere from one to several times a month. “I’ve coined two words for what you need” to be a successful mentor, says Kobrin. “Commitment and consistency.”
But back to the boomerang.
On this sunny Saturday morning, they hop into Kobrin’s Volvo on their way to Washington Park near Kenneth’s home. Kobrin slips a Harry Belafonte CD into the music system. “I introduced him to the kind of music I like, and he introduced me to the kind of music he likes,” says Kobrin. “What is it that you like so much? ‘Thugbones From the ‘Hood?’ ”
“Bone, Thugs-N-Harmony,” Kenneth corrects him a tad wearily.
They are a study in contrasts--Kobrin is white and loquacious. Kenneth is black and a young man of few words. Kobrin lives in a Hollywood apartment and comes from a prosperous Palo Alto family that encourages his community service. Kenneth lives in a neatly kept little house with his grandmother and grandfather, four siblings (including his twin sister) and three cousins. Kenneth’s mother died four years ago when she was hit by a car. He sees his father regularly, but shrugs when asked what his father does.
In the big grassy park, they try haplessly to master the boomerang. After a while, they give up and sit down at a bench. Kobrin pulls out paper and begins fashioning origami figures--a craft he learned while playing one of Santa’s helpers for children visiting Santa Claus at South Coast Plaza.
*
Kenneth watches raptly. In the beginning, it took awhile for each to be comfortable with the other. Kenneth was sullen. Kobrin was the opposite.
“He talked too much,” says Kenneth bluntly.
“Do I still talk too much?” asks Kobrin.
“No,” says Kenneth diplomatically.
A jet soars overhead. “What is that?” asks Kobrin, peering up.
“A 747,” Kenneth says expertly.
“We’re learning about planes,” says Kobrin.
There was a time when the closest Kobrin would get to South-Central was to fly over in a plane. But then, on a visit to a school counselor friend, he met a sad-faced boy named Kenneth Smith. Kobrin struck up a conversation. When he broke out the origami paper and fashioned a crane, Kenneth broke into an amazed smile. And Kobrin decided he wanted to take Kenneth under his wing.
Pearlie Mae Ross, Kenneth’s grandmother, says Kobrin’s mentoring has helped her grandson in school. “I was talking to Kenneth,” said the soft-spoken 57-year-old woman, referring to some of his recent schoolwork, “and he said, ‘It was the first time I really made an A.’ It was from David helping him.”
