Churchill mentor program is a win-win for players, district’s young students

Once a week for six weeks every Spring, Livonia’s Johnson Upper Elementary School welcomes student mentors from Livonia Churchill High School — many varsity football players — to bond with students at the school they attended themselves four or five years earlier.

“It’s really a cool, full-circle moment when the mentors from Churchill visit and meet with our students because the mentors are excited to be back in their former school and our students get such a lift when the high school kids visit,” said Johnson Upper Elementary School Principal Tom Traub, who has been a part of the outreach program started by Churchill Head Football Coach Allen Fiegel in 2012 since he was named principal at Johnson six years ago.

“A lot of times, this is the first time the high school students have been back to Johnson in four or five years. Not only are they excited to work with our students, they’ll ask about teachers they had when they were here. A lot of them will visit their former teachers … give them hugs and high-fives.”

Program has evolved over the years

Fiegel, a widely-respected educator and coach at Churchill, explained the program’s initial purpose and how it has evolved over the past 14 years.

“I set out to start a yearly outreach program back in 2012,” Fiegel said. “We wanted it to be organic, yet structured. At first, it was strictly a reading program, as we chose for it to run during the springtime. That timing was important because we would encourage the students to continue reading through the summer.

“Naturally, the program evolved and expanded over the years. We went from only volunteering at Rosedale Elementary (adjacent to Churchill), to being requested by additional elementary schools in our triad (Kennedy, Randolph, Johnson). The evolution part has really been spearheaded by Tom (Traub), who has used our volunteers as more of ‘mentors’, which I think is fantastic.”

Marvelous meet-ups

Churchill players travel to the high school’s feeder schools every Wednesday afternoon for six weeks beginning in early-April.

“They head out immediately after school and we usually have four to six players at each building,” Fiegel explained. “They do different things: mentoring, reading, math help, or simply helping at recess. It’s a win-win for our school district.”

Like Traub, Heather Field, a teacher at Randolph Elementary who has helped organize volunteers at her school, said the mentoring program is magical.

“It’s nice because the high school students seem to get as much out of it as the elementary students,” Field said, smiling. “And they’re not just talking about football. The elementary students will ask the high school students about what high school is like, things like that. The high school students will recommend clubs to join once they reach Churchill — and just talk about everyday things that the younger students are curious about.”

Proud of his crew

Fiegel said he is proud of how his football players seize responsibility of the purpose of the program.

“Since I also coach track and field at Churchill and I cannot get out and actually see our kids in action, I simply organize it on our end and the players take complete ownership of this once they are scheduled,” Fiegel said. “They communicate with each other to make sure each school has enough volunteers on a weekly basis.

“And while every so often there may be a minor hiccup coverage-wise, for the most part our players do a great job of embracing it and owning it. Moreover, several of our current players were a part of this very program themselves when they were in elementary school. How cool is that! We now have volleyball players getting involved, so now it is spreading to other sports which is a goal of mine.”

Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.