Bawmu & Patrick

Bawmu and Patrick often are the life of the zoom party since mentoring has moved to online meetings. Their enthusiasm, positive comments, and excitement to read together contagious. With Patrick’s help, Bawmu’s confidence in reading out loud has increased; now he reads long chapter books out loud in their entirety!

Name of Mentee: Bawmu
Name of Mentor: Patrick DiMambro
Mentoring Program: Everybody Wins! Vermont
Program Type: School-Based
Length of Their Match: 3.5 years
Age of Mentee: 11

About This Match:

The Mentee

Bawmu is a New American of Burmese descent. He and Patrick have formed a deep, trusting bond. They’ve read and played literacy games together weekly since Bawmu was in second grade. Although the pandemic and our move to virtual Everybody Wins sessions has been challenging, Patrick and Bawmu have made it work! Through Patrick’s encouragement, Bawmu has taken on more and more responsibilities of reading aloud. It is with great pride that since October of this year, Bawmu has tackled reading aloud via our Zoom session the entire online book, Eyes of the Emperor by Graham Salisbury. This lengthy 250+ page chapter book has kept both Patrick and Bawmu captivated week after week, especially with Bawmu’s confident and very expressive reading aloud.

The Mentor

Patrick has worked hard to fulfill his goal for participation in our program. As a new college graduate and young professional, it was clear that Patrick understood the incredible impact mentoring can have on mentees. His stated goal was fairly simple: “Developing a relationship with one child over the course of a year or beyond.” Patrick has mentored three children at Edmunds Elementary School in the past 6 years. Bawmu and Patrick have been fortunate to develop their relationship based on kindness, humor, and friendship over the past three and a half years.

Bawmu and Patrick were honored by Comcast and MENTOR Vermont as 2022 Vermont Ambassadors of Mentoring!