Root Cellar – Student Support Specialist

The Root Cellar engages neighbors and volunteers to cultivate personal and community wholeness. We offer youth mentoring, food security programs, job training, skill and enrichment classes, English Language Learning and more! We believe mentoring neighborhood youth is the most impacting strategy to prepare them to grow as leaders and transform their own communities. Rooted Mentoring Groups meet throughout the year and offer many opportunities for children and teens to Work, Play, Grow and Gather together. We also offer After-School Enrichment and Summer Day Camps for elementary youth. Neighborhood high school students can join the Lew Crew, a unique youth development program where teens earn a stipend while gaining valuable skills and work experience And Lewiston is where it’s at! Lewiston is Maine’s second largest metropolitan area. It has all the conveniences and fun of a large city but is also close to outdoor recreational opportunities including mountains, lakes and beaches. 

The day-in-day-out work is in building relationships with youth. We believe that poverty alleviation comes through investing in the social capital of our cities. Youth have remarkable capacity for community building and economic contribution. And mentoring them is incredibly rewarding! Downtown Lewiston has one of the highest concentrations of young people in Maine. They come from diverse backgrounds and bring a wide range of interests – whether it’s  make-up or Marvel, sewing or soccer or coloring or climbing. Many are resilient, conscientious, and eager to grow. At The Root Cellar, you will have the opportunity to listen to what the youth in your mentor group want to do, help them with what they want to learn, encourage them in their strengths, motivate them in their times of adversity and be one of their closest adult friends. Your mentees will learn English, learn to read, succeed at something they may have never heard of before (think skiing, canoeing or chemistry!), obtain their first jobs and receive college acceptance letters – and then thank you for it. A team of other mentors, the Program Manager and a wealth of training in positive youth development, restorative Justice and trauma-informed care will carry you through. It’s not easy, but it is indescribably rewarding!