LaNelle Ramey is the New Executive Director of MENTOR Greater Milwaukee
Some people may know LaNelle Ramey from his years at the Boys and Girls Club. Or, from his time at Milwaukee Public Schools Black and Latino Male Achievement (BLMA). Well, Ramey has taken on a new role and that’s the executive director of MENTOR Greater Milwaukee (MGM), which aligns with the work he’s been doing since around 1994.
Ramey has been a mentor to 100s of kids formally and 1000s of kids informally, and with this new role he plans on being a poster kid for mentoring on a bigger platform.
MGM was launched a little over a year ago and their goal is to increase the quality and quantity of mentoring in Milwaukee.
Through MGM, Ramey and his team want to help organizations either start a mentoring program or help them with their existing one.
One of the many youth LaNelle Ramey has mentored through BLMA. (Picture by LaNelle Ramey)
“We’re here to service all mentoring programs,” said Ramey.
“I want to create mentoring as a fabricate of our community,” he added.
MGM is an affiliate of MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership. MGM is supported by MPS and the Milwaukee Bucks.
According to Ramey, if it wasn’t for his mentor he wouldn’t have applied for college. Ramey did note that he has a huge support system, but he still needed that outside voice for moral support.
Ramey understands the importance of mentorship, but wants the rest of the city to understand and hop on board. He said that everyone can be a mentor in some type of capacity and MGM can help you find how you fit into the mentoring world.
“[There] are opportunities for everyone to be involved,” Ramey said.
Ramey said it’s about being vulnerable enough to tell your truth because everyone has a story that could help someone else in their journey in life.
LaNelle Ramey has been mentoring this young man since he was in second grade. He is now a senior in high school. (Picture provided by LaNelle Ramey)
MGM has data proven steps to guide organizations on their specific needs. And on-going training will be provided to ensure organizations are always offering quality programming. Ramey encourages existing mentoring programs to add their program to MGM’s database to help bring awareness to the many mentoring programs throughout the city.
For those interested in becoming a mentor, Ramey said it first starts with being a good listener.
“I hear who they are so I can help them be who they want to be,” he said.
It’s not about changing a child, but helping them improve themselves and giving them the support they need, so they can be best person they can be.
“Help support a young person,” Ramey said. “Speak truth, speak passion [and] speak destiny into them.”
For more information on MENTOR Greater Milwaukee, click here.