By Christina Lee

Editorial Intern

While many students can be found volunteering at local hospitals, lifeguarding and bagging groceries, older Los Altos and Mountain View residents are lending their hands to the community as well.

Partners for a New Generations (PNG), a branch of the local Rotary Club, volunteers in elementary and high schools in the area.

In addition to tutoring programs and coaching sports, PNG has offered student mentor programs for the past six years.

One of PNG’s most successful programs is the Out to Lunch program at Alta Vista High School in Mountain View.

Out to Lunch focuses on providing students with the support and guidance they lack in their everyday lives.

Alta Vista particularly benefits from the mentor program because the majority of the student body (approximately 90 percent) has been referred to Alta Vista by another school on the basis of attendance problems or the need of a smaller, more nurturing academic environment.

Meeting during the week (mentors and their students decide on how often) mentors and students partake in joint activities such as going out to lunch and playing sports.

Occasionally mentors invite their students for weekend family outings.

Though the program pairs students and mentors during the fall, Out to Lunch participants often spend time together throughout the year and form important and strong relationships.

Students can have serious, non-judgmental discussions with their mentors about their social life, home life and plans for the future such as the profession that he/she is interested in.

Mentors, in turn, listen and can provide advice based upon their personal experiences and opinions.

Rotary Club member Roy Lave stated the primary goal of the program is to support the kids by giving them a friend, but the mentors get as much out of it as the kids.

Lave noted that there are approximately 30 mentors currently involved with Out to Lunch but that the Rotary Club needs new volunteers for this fall.

PNG has requested increased funding to expand the Out to Lunch Program to bring support and interest to other local schools.

Partners for New Generations is sponsored by local Rotary Clubs and the Los Altos Community Foundation.

For more information, call 562-1195, ext. 2.