HOLYOKE - Hampden County has 19 mentoring programs providing 1,500 young people, mostly from underprivileged backgrounds, with role models and guidance from a trusted adult.

That's about 300 more mentor/mentoree relationship than existed in the county two years ago, said Marty Martinez, president and CEO of the Mass Mentoring Partnership.

But even with that growth, only about 12 percent of the young people living in poverty and in single-family households in high-priority Springfield and Holyoke have mentors, Martinez said Tuesday prior to meeting with leaders from youth-development and educational organizations at the Gateway City Arts in Holyoke.

The Mass Mentoring Partnership is a statewide nonprofit that fosters respectful relationships between young people and adults who can serve as advisers and role models.

"The need is great in Springfield and Holyoke," Martinez said. "We have identified those as communities where we need to focus. But the opportunity is great, too. Every time the need is great the opportunities are great."

The occasion Tuesday was the release of Mass Mentoring Partnership's Mass Mentoring Counts survey results. The survey, undertaken every other year, is meant to quantify the mentoring services provided around the state and identify areas of improvement.

Mentoring programs like Boys & Girls Club of Holyoke, Boys and Girls Club of Greater Westfield, Black Men of Greater Springfield Inc. and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Hampden County responded to the survey and were present at Tuesday's session.

There is an ethnic mismatch between the volunteer mentors and the youth being mentored, according to the report. The largest group of mentorees is Hispanic/Latino youth, with 53 percent reported. However, only 16 percent of mentors identify as Hispanic/Latino. Overall, 38 percent of their mentors are of color.

"There are a lot of cross-cultural relationships being built," Martinez said.

One solution would be to recruit more mentor volunteers "of color" as he termed it. Another solution is to train provide a lot of cultural training to all the volunteers so they know how to communicate effectively with the kids who need them.

"There are not as many place doing that," he said.

Martinez also found that youth programs that are not specifically set up as mentoring programs - places like Tech Foundry in Springfield with its computer training or the Greater Holyoke YMCA - also foster mentor/mentoree relationships.

Also, mentoring programs in Hampden County seem to focus on the middle-school years. Elsewhere in the state, the emphasis is on younger children.

Martinez said many of these programs need volunteers and anyone interested is invited to first check out the Mass Mentoring Partnership's homepage at