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Hayden — Virginia Lamneck and Jenny Ackerson said it doesn't take much to gain the trust of the Hayden Middle School students they work with as school-based mentors.

"Sometimes it's just a matter of saying 'hi' and asking how their day went," said Lamneck, 22. "We are not there to be teachers, but there to provide something a little bit more meaningful one-on-one."

The two mentors, who are part of an AmeriCorps program administered by the Steamboat Springs-based Partners in Routt County, a nonprofit organization, provide educational and emotional support to about seven students.

The two mentors have created the "Paws" arts program, for example, which encourages students to express themselves through photography and creative writing.

"They don't have electives in sixth or seventh grade unless they are in band," Ackerson said. "And you can really see their creative juices flowing because they need this outlet. A lot of them don't seem to realize they have these capabilities."

Public middle schools in Steamboat Springs, South Routt and Hayden each have two school-based mentors.

In a small conference room on the Colorado Mountain College campus, the six Routt County-based AmeriCorps workers met Friday for their weekly meeting to discuss the joys and frustrations associated with their jobs.

Ellie Glover, a 22-year-old Alaska native, works at South Routt Middle School with Steph Rio, a 22-year-old from Chicago.

"We are working with a lot of kids from single-parent families, and they are not getting a ton of supervision after school because their parents are working more than one job," Glover said.

"As silly as it sounds, they are just bored," Rio said. "Especially in Oak Creek, because it is tiny. If they don't have after-school supervision by their parents, they run around and cause trouble."

Glover described working with the students as an emotional roller coaster.

"When they are having a hard time, it is really hard on us," she said. "We want to make it better, but you can't just go and fix it : you have to try to not take it personally if they don't want to talk to you."

Rio said the mentors are in a unique position to play an important role in the students' lives, because of their relatively young age and not being school district staff.

"We are not a school counselor, we are not an authority figure or a school support specialist, so sometimes they trust us more just because of that - because we are not tracking the progress," she said.

Greg Johnson, 24, said breaking down the wall between authority figure and friend is an important step in the mentoring process.

"The biggest part of our jobs is just going to these kids and asking how is their day, how are their parents and asking these questions day in and day out," he said. "It's nice to have someone who seems to care about them. You know what is going on in their lives. You know something really bad is happening, and you know why they are having a bad day."

Melissa Calhoon, the program's project manager with Partners, noted that while the mentors may be paired with about seven students, they serve all of the school's population.

"We like to be that way because we don't want kids to feel pinpointed," she said. "There is no stigma meeting and talking with the mentors."

Risheen Maheswaran, 22, also works at Steamboat Springs Middle School. She expressed shock in how quickly the relationships between the students and herself began - a speed that she said highlighted the need for mentorship.

"To me, it's amazing and powerful how strong these relationships can be and how quickly they developed," she said.

"Some of the kids take a while - I have a kid that just started opening up to me. For the most part, they really like us and want to talk with us and make a connection."

- To reach Mike McCollum, call 871-4208 or e-mail mmccollum@steamboatpilot.com