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IN THE COMMUNITY Students Mentor Youths at Community Health Center Every Friday, at the Martha Eliot Health Center in Jamaica Plain, a dozen first-years from HMS and HSDM volunteer to spend the afternoon with a dozen sixth- and seventh-grade students. Serving as mentors, the Harvard students are paired with mentees of the same gender who range in age from 11 to 14. Although open to children in the surrounding communities of Jamaica Plain, Upper Roxbury, and Mission Hill, the neighboring Bromley-Heath housing project is specifically targeted for mentee recruiting. Harvard students began the mentoring project six years ago in conjunction with the Eliot center, which is a community health center of Children's Hospital. The program annually recruits new mentors and mentees, and two second-year HMS or HSDM students go on to serve as the coordinators of the project. The model thereby promotes sustainability and smooth transitions. "The goal is helping the children become successful in life," said David Holder, project director of the mentoring program and medical director of the health center. The overall mission of the program is to enhance the life opportunities of underrepresented minority youth through the development of a relationship with a medical or dental student mentor. "The magic is in the mentoring," Holder said, which helps the mentees to improve their academic skills, develop cultural pride and awareness, gain guidance with issues of adolescence, and explore career opportunities, especially those in the health professions. In addition to mentoring, the medical and dental students are dedicated to instilling the value of service in others. Holder encourages faculty participation through mentoring first- and second-year students at HMS and HSDM. Interested faculty should e-mail david.holder@childrens.harvard.edu for more information. --Hammid Firoozeh