c. 1999 Religion News Service

HOLLAND, Mich. _ Their friendship started with a ride to the doctor.

Jamila Wilkins didn’t have a car, and she was pregnant. She needed to get to the obstetrician’s office. Deborah DuMez, a volunteer at Holland’s Good Samaritan Ministries, picked up Wilkins in her van. They hit it off, and so did their kids.”After that first visit, I couldn’t help but offer to take her to her next appointment,”recalled DuMez.”I said, `Don’t bother calling (Good Samaritan). I’ll just take you.'” That was about a year ago. Today, DuMez still gives Wilkins rides now and then. But she also has helped the young mother of five get back her driver’s license, and Wilkins just got a car donated by a Zeeland church. Along with three other people from her church, DuMez stood by Wilkins as she got a job and moved into a home. Next, they hope to see her begin work on a high school equivalency diploma.

But it is Wilkins herself who has made the changes needed to move from public assistance toward an independent life. And DuMez has been more than a helping hand; she’s been a friend, a mentor.”I’m kind of a little proud of myself,”Wilkins, 24, admits with a shy grin, sitting next to DuMez at the Good Samaritan office.”It has a lot to do with my project team. They kind of inspired me.”As she talks, she and DuMez clasp hands, and hold on for the rest of their conversation.

The coming together of two very different women _ a middle-class mother of two who designs computer systems and a welfare-dependent single mom from a troubled Detroit home _ symbolizes a faith-based effort seeking to put loving hands behind the state’s welfare-to-work program. Two of the state’s counties _ Ottawa and Kent _ are recruiting church volunteers to act as mentors for clients of Michigan’s Project Zero, launched in 1996 to use help and incentives to put welfare recipients to work.

One of six original Project Zero sites, Ottawa County succeeded in helping all of its 155 targeted recipients earn at least some income by the first year. Hampered by delays in state funding, Kent County got its program off the ground a little more than a year ago. So far, 94 families have been matched with mentors; 17 have successfully completed their goals.

While no studies have yet measured the effectiveness of the Project Zero mentor program, some mentors and the families they work with say the benefits go both ways.”I don’t on a regular basis meet people who are on welfare,”said John Ferroli, a Cascade Township lawyer, who since fall has worked with Jerry and Cathy Hoag of Wyoming, Mich.”This gave me a great opportunity to gain some sensitivity to their challenges, their needs and their struggles.” The Hoags have welcomed Ferroli and four other mentors into their home for everything from budgeting advice to helping their daughters with homework.”It’s kind of like someone rooting you on,”said Cathy.”It was just extra support, a cheering team.” Back in Holland, Jamila Wilkins is enjoying a new job and home, while Deborah DuMez feels blessed to have gotten involved with someone so different from herself.”This kind of thing is to me what life is all about _ getting to know people in a deeper relationship,”said DuMez, 32.

It’s also what Project Zero mentoring aims for, said Brian Telfor, who coordinates the mentor program for Good Samaritan Ministries, a Christian service agency.”That’s what we’re all about _ helping (mentors and families) make the connection, keep the connection, and have a strong relationship afterwards,”Telfor says.

Those connections yield surprising relationships, said Becky Irwin, Kent County coordinator for Project Zero mentoring.”Prejudgments are fading,”Irwin said.”The give and take between mentor and client is just enormous in breaking down walls and bridges across various segments of the population.” Project Zero mentors are trained to help families with budgeting, parental skills, job-hunting, transportation and personal problems. Teams of two to five mentors are matched with individuals or families, typically working with them for six months to a year.

Of the 35 Project Zero sites statewide, only Kent, Ottawa and Berrien counties use faith-based mentoring, said Karen Smith, spokesperson for the Family Independence Agency. A number of others utilize mentors but not based in faith communities.

So far, about 220 Project Zero families in Ottawa County have been referred for mentoring. Of those, about 100 have been matched with mentors, and roughly 30 percent have declined to participate. Because of its religious component, Project Zero mentoring is strictly voluntary. Some clients don’t want anything to do with churches or certain denominations, Telfor said.

Ottawa’s volunteer qualifications include a”desire to serve Christ.”But in their four hours of training, mentors are told not to push their faith on clients.”We don’t want to beat people on the head with the Bible,”Telfor said.”We’re hoping that through examples of Christian behavior, people become inquisitive”about the volunteers’ faith.

Not all mentor-client pairings work out, often due to cultural and lifestyle differences, Telfor said. A mentor may look askance on a mom spending money on cable TV, and the mom may resent being judged. Sometimes the differences can be resolved through agency social workers, he says.

Still, through Good Samaritan and its related offices, mentoring is helping close to 70 percent of the participating families get work and meet other goals, Telfor said.”Families are truly getting out of ruts,”he said.”When they fall, the church is there to pick them up.” But the success rate ultimately depends on the families, not the mentors, he said:”It’s not a transfer of dependency from the state onto the church.” The last thing Jamila Wilkins wants is more dependency.

Raised in Detroit by her grandmother, she came to Holland in 1997 looking for a better environment for her four kids. Two of them are her brother’s, whom she adopted. She lived on state adoption payments and cash assistance, later joined by a boyfriend who brought in some income.

Wilkins was referred to Project Zero while expecting her fifth child, Jared. She told DuMez about the program, and DuMez offered to be her mentor team leader. DuMez pulled together other volunteers from her church, Third Reformed in Holland.

Anna Bierd, Irwin Brink, Lorna Cook and DuMez helped Wilkins map out goals including housing, a car, a job, finishing her schooling and paying traffic tickets that had cost her her license.

Each mentor helped out in different ways, from house-hunting to financial planning. DuMez often was the one Wilkins called for a shoulder to lean on. Their kids played together during doctor visits, and DuMez hosted an ice-cream social for the mentor team.

With their help, Wilkins recently began working as a part-time housekeeper. Though still on food stamps and Medicaid, she said she sees independence not far off.”I was so happy”to get the job, Wilkins bubbled.”I’m glad I can work, and get my own check.” For her part, DuMez learned first-hand the hardships of a woman who came from a background unlike her comfortable, white world.”I would judge people who were on welfare in the past,”she said.”Now, I’m friends with somebody who was on welfare. It’s really hard to get off.” Neither woman sees their relationship ending, even assuming Wilkins meets all her goals.”We’re too close,”DuMez said.

DEA END HONEY