Dear Mark-

Good Morning!  When I wrote to you last night I completely forgot to include one other observation and make an offer I'm so willing to make to you and the OWLS.

You were telling us your fabulous ideas about mentoring.  Every study shows that the single thing that makes the most difference in a kid's life is to have a kind, responsible adult to count on.  Any mentoring gig deserves all the help to get going it can get!

So, as I understand it, your idea is to have kids come in as, for lack of a better phrase, unpaid interns.  Am I right?  I hope so because that is such a great way to do this.  I know internships look really good on college applications so you'll have a whole gaggle of takers.  MY BIG IDEA is to use this to take care of one of your big problems-your website-and I know that was part of your idea, too.  Here are the details of the idea you inspired me to think of:

1.  You offer an internship for, maybe, 7th-12th graders and you offer it through the computer classes they  take.
2.  You limit how many kids will be involved at any one time...I don't know what the facilities are or what the deal is, so this isn't something I can make suggestions on.
3.  You make sure all the kids are computer stars (and there are plenty of them-we all joke around about our kids being better with computers but the truth is, it's no joke.  They really are!), AND that they are interested in the outdoors/conservation and can articulate that interest.
4.  You split them into two groups-for the first half of the internship, half of the kids sit on the board and are able to have input and learn about that.  The other half are working on your website.  Half way through, you switch so every kid gets and idea of what it's like to be on a board and gets a chance to do some real work for a deserving charity.
5.  I believe (not positive) that this could count towards not only volunteer hours, but also class credits.

Now to what I'd be happy, happy to do for you.  I will get in touch with computer teachers from the middle school and high school.  I will also get in touch with Chuck Fain.  I will also use the services of my "couldn't love the outdoors and believe in conservation more" husband, Gary Russell.  I will talk to each about the feasibility of this plan and get input as to changes that would need to be made.  Once all is in place, we can nail down criteria, I'll submit and outline of an application to Chuck, Gary, computer teachers and your board and when approved, I'll draft the application (which I know everyone hates to do but not me-love it).

I'm communicating this to you in a follow up letter, Mark, rather than a personal email because I seem to have many readers and hear from them all the time via email and facebook that they read every letter...if that's so, perhaps they'd be willing to belly up to the bar and make some comments/suggestions and/or volunteer for this project (if approved by your board, of course) or another project the OWLS are working on that they'd be  interested in.  It would make me so happy if that happened because if one more person tells me they're reading ever letter I write and then emailing me about instead of commenting I'm going to...you get my point.

So the question is, what do you think?  Reply in a private email-you  have my address-or through a comment here.  Can't wait to hear from you.

Sincerely Yours