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One-on-One Mentoring

Mentors are paired with children and youth on a one-on-one basis, where they commit to donating time each week for a minimum of one to two years. Create Now! invites our mentors and their mentees to participate in our Artistic Journeys! program, so they can bond while attending fun concerts, plays and other events.

Featured Mentors:

Carlos Valdiva and Ingacio Arguello Jr.

When Ignacio Arguello, Jr. was 17 years old, he had a busy social life that revolved around his gang called GAC (“Ghetto and Crazy”). Ignacio was active with the Tag Crew, spraying graffiti wherever he could. He never knew his father and was staying with his aunt, uncle, cousins and grandmother in a small apartment in San Pedro because of family problems and gang issues in Long Beach. Ignacio told Create Now! staff, “Nobody really helps me. Nobody really tells me, ‘Don’t go to jail. Don’t bang,’ you know.”

Create Now! found a one-on-one mentor that would change Ignacio’s life, Carlos Valdivia. Carlos and his wife Naomi are both amazingly gifted artists whose work can be viewed at Beenz n Rice. Carlos was very impressed with the quality of Ignacio’s artwork and wanted to make a difference in his life. “When Create Now! contacted me, I was struggling as a freelance artist, with two young children to support. But I remembered how I always wanted to have somebody point me in the right direction with art, and to teach me the fundamentals as I was coming up. I figured that even if I wasn’t where I wanted to be in terms of my own work, I could at least help someone else get closer to their goal.”

Ignacio is now 18, is finishing high school and plans to devote himself to a career in art. “Carlos is teaching me how to get in the business and how to do something with my life. I’ve really improved a lot from being in Create Now! ” As a mentor, Carlos has also gotten more out of the experience than even he imagined, “Helping Ignacio even for this short period of time has already helped to improve my own artistic life. Since our meeting, I've become Lead Creative Designer for Nexgenpkg, a start up with a promising future here in Ventura. I love mentoring Ignacio, and this is just the beginning!” Click here to view some of Ignacio's Art Work

Jessie O'Neil and Alyssa

Jessie came to Create Now! in September 2006. As a senior at Chapman University, she is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Peace Studies. Jessie wanted to mentor a group of girls in creative writing, so Create Now! arranged for her to teach a workshop in a group home in Mission Viejo, where one of her students was Jesse. After the class was completed, the home closed down, and the girls, including Alyssa, were placed in different foster homes and other facilities. Although creative expression and in particular, poetry, was my key to engaging Alyssa, our relationship is what has made the difference.

A month after I began volunteering with Create Now!, Alyssa told me that the poetic expression she once loved, she now hated. While I was obviously disheartened, I did not ask any questions, but rather proceeded with my writing program as usual. Every Friday afternoon I continued to come to the house and talk to the girls about their week. Once in a while, I would have the unique opportunity to read a poem or story that they had written. I was patient because I knew that I could not win their trust overnight. The staff would always thank me for being so dedicated and flexible with my commitment to the girls. As much I knew I was making difference, I was determined to do more. Alyssa may have abandoned poetry, but I knew that she could not ignore her passion for long.

“When I first came to the house I didn’t think there was going to be anybody from my culture there. I was AWOL-ing, ditching school, doing drugs, and telling everybody that they weren’t in charge of me. Until I found out that there were people there who actually cared about me, I didn’t think that anything would change. They told me that they loved me and wanted me to do better for myself. When they first told me that, I was still doing bad. One day there was a restraining order on me and my dad and I decided that I needed to change stuff about my life to go home, and I did. Ever since then I took “baby steps” and continued to do well.

One night I took Alyssa to see the movie "Freedom Writers," a film about a high school English teacher who inspires marginalized youth to write about their circumstances. I cannot put into words what I felt on the ride home, listening to Alyssa rave about how much she liked the film. The movie also talks about the students visiting the Museum of Tolerance, reading “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and raising money to have the woman who gave shelter to Anne speak at their school. I couldn’t help but smile when Alyssa admitted, “I want to do that!” Her reactions were a testament to the power of art. For Alyssa, the film wasn’t just entertaining, it was empowering. To see that young people in similar situations to her own could rise above their circumstances and make a difference, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of others, sparked something in Alyssa.