Every Saturday, Nathan Powell spends an hour of his time hanging out with two youth who are in need of attention.

“Part of it is to provide a role model, in my case a male role model,” Powell said. “A lot of these kids come from families that are broken and they don’t have a lot of positive attention. One of the things I do is to try and provide that attention.”

Powell volunteers with the Safety Net Mentoring, a program similar to the Big Brother program. Each week Powell and the two boys he mentors spend time participating in different activities. 

“We go swimming a lot,” Powell said. “We go to BYU to check out the computer stuff. One of the kids is interested in designing cars, so we played around on the 3D Modeler computer program. One time we went to the Food and Care Coalition to volunteer and serve lunch. A lot of it is wrestling around and having a good time.”

It was over a year ago that Powell felt like he should get involved in a mentoring type of service. After doing some research on the internet, he discovered Safety Net Mentoring.

“Growing up my dad didn’t give me as much attention as I felt I needed or wanted,” Powell said. “One of the things I felt like I could do to stop that cycle was doing something like that with other kids, practice for when I am a father. It makes me feel good. I don’t think I quite understand how it is to grow up in the kids’ situation.”

Consistency and dependability is a huge part of the Safety Net Mentoring program because so many of the kids involved have not been able to experience that trust with adults in their lives.

“He is faithful, which is a big thing,” said Karla Sedillo, director and founder of the program. “He is pretty good to send reports and he has been a faithful mentor for a long time. You have to build a relationship with a kid and that takes awhile.”

Safety Net always has more children than mentors. Interested volunteers must be willing to spend a minimum of one hour a week with their child. After having a background check, mentors choose the child they will be most compatible with. Contact Karla at (801) 374-7637 or ksedillo@utah.gov for more information.

“I’ve gained a sense of fulfillment, accomplishment, having some small influence in someone else’s life,” Powell said. “I feel like I’ve grown in my desire to be more responsible in my own life so I can be a better example.”