Meet Team Iglesias, our December Mentors of the Month!
Join us in honoring the Iglesias Family's entire Mentor Team as our December 2021 Mentors of the Month!
In three words, Imagine LA Family Team Manager Vanessa Monroy describes the Iglesias Family’s Mentor Team as positive, persevering, and understanding.
As the pandemic has changed all our lives, it also changed how our mentors walk alongside their mentees. The Iglesias’s Mentor Team – Bess, Vanessa, Barnabas, and Mary Anne – formed in Spring 2020, as the world went into lockdown. However, that didn't stop the team from going above and beyond to meet the family “where they were at,” jumping in and adapting their approach to walk alongside their mentees.
Bess stepped up to attend Imagine LA family fun events to pick up needed supplies and items for the family. Vanessa and Barnabas joined Bess and Mary Anne, filling needed mentor slots when their service was needed. Mary Anne showed great humility as she adjusted her expectations to build trust and rapport with Carmen (mom). And the whole team demonstrated an extraordinary level of patience and flexibility to accommodate the family’s busy schedule.
Barnabas’s Story
Barnabas had been wanting to do more volunteering, and heard about Imagine LA through his church in late 2019. The most impactful part of his experience was watching his mentee, James (age 17), open up to him bit by bit. At first reserved and closed off, after a few meetings, James began sharing more and more – about school and sports, and then deeper: his challenges and opportunities, goals and dreams.
“James is ahead of his years in maturity,” says Barnabas. “He has a clear vision of his future and I’m honored to be part of it.”
Barnabas was inspired by the entire Iglesias family, who he describes as “driven and passionate,” and has been humbled to establish a deep bond with them and learn about their culture and traditions. For Barnabas, this connection has reinforced how important it is to spend time with people different than you, to “challenge your pride and your perceptions of people” from different backgrounds, recognizing the different dreams of people who’ve faced different challenges.
Thinking back to the training at the start of his mentorship journey, Barnabas remembers how Imagine LA has compassionately challenged him from the start, like when our Community Engagement Manager, Monet Bagneris Tolbert, taught the mentors to say, “a person experiencing homelessness,” rather than a “homeless person.”
It’s little things like this person-centered language that can make a big impact on how we view the world and treat each other. After all, says Barnabas, “We’re all in need of help and support in some way.”
