Growing up, Toby Thompson helped out in his mom’s coffee shop- which happened to be a favorite pit-stop for Maui Ramos, the yoga, meditation, and capoeira instructor at Empowerteen. “He suggested having me come on as a mentor,” Thompson reflects, tracing back his roots with Empowerteen to 2018. “I helped out for that summer and I’ve just been doing it ever since.” Over seven years have gone by in a flash since that first retreat, and as Thompson has grown, so has Empowerteen.
“I like teaching people,” Thompson says simply. He’s currently attending schooling in linguistics and sees himself using his degree to become a teacher. His experience with Empowerteen is one of the things that helped him realize his enjoyment of the vocation, as each retreat showed him that being a mentor means you teach and are taught. “All of the minute differences in perspective and experience can really help one process things,” he expounds, recalling the ways he witnessed insight into how teaching can impact not just the student, but the teacher as well. “You can help them feel like they’re not alone, and they also in turn make you feel that you’re not alone; and they tell you struggles that they’re dealing with that you remember dealing with; that’s very nice.”
Thompson’s passion and love for teaching is one of the things that kept drawing him back year after year- and he doesn’t see that changing. He explains that Empowerteen as a whole has been an eye-opening experience for him that has helped him understand the importance of passing down knowledge and helping kids climb through the teenage years. Regardless of where the future takes him, Thompson assures, “I’ll always want to find some place where I can do that.”
Another piece of Empowerteen that he cherishes is the continual growth he witnesses as a mentor. “One of the things that I love is the very real…community that it creates,” Thompson expands. “There’s a lot of the attendees that come back every year and they just keep going until they’re adults, and then they start mentoring.” He recalls the surreal feeling of seeing one of his own mentees from his very first retreat turn into a mentor, saying, “That was a really wild experience- because I was like ‘oh I remember when you were really tiny!’” Thompson loves watching each participant bloom, whether that’s just over the course of the five day retreat or over each year that they attend Empowerteen events. “From the people that return year after year, watching these big explosions of growth…and then there’s some other little bud in there that can grow.”
Admittedly, everyone has to learn the value of being a mentor on their own, but Thompson offers a few words of advice for those who are considering taking on the duty. “The greatest asset to a mentor is patience and a good open ear,” he shares, speaking from his many years of experience. “The vast majority of the time, if you’re just gentle, and patient, and you leave room for the kids, they’ll come to you.” His advice highlights one of the most amazing things about Empowerteen; giving young people a space where they can open up. “And that’s all they really need because a lot of people might not have that elsewhere.” That golden piece of advice shows the true picture of what being a mentor at Empowerteen really is.
WRITTEN BY: Grace Bland, Empowerteen Journalism Intern
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