2019 MACH

Community Volunteer Awards
2019 Honorees
MACH – Mentors at Cordova High

Distinguished Teen Service

MACH – Mentors at Cordova High
When somebody says “May the Force be With You” in Rancho Cordova these days, if you are lucky, they are talking about the young adults from Cordova High who are participating in MACH – Mentors at Cordova High.

These energetic young people truly pack a punch when they arrive on the scene.

Need some tents raised? You got it. Fences ripped out? Step aside. Trees planted? At your service. This team is good for go.

So it may come as a surprise to many to hear the back story on this crew, who mostly hail from poor, broken families. Some are homeless. They act out at school. Some people might call them trouble-makers and worse.  
But Conrade Mayer, who runs in-school suspension at Cordova High, prefers to see them as “under-supported.”

So Conrade rounded up a group of his fellow CHS alumni, and with the help of his equally-committed wife, began an informal mentoring program for his charges doing time at Suspension. Caring adults with love to spare.

Trading participation for tangible benefits -- like otherwise unaffordable tickets to the Prom or a yearbook -- Mayer began showing up at community events and work days with a small army of students who everybody else had written off.  

Slowly, the crew began to make a name for themselves around town as they pitched in to provide muscle at neighborhood cleanups, help tear out unsightly chain link fences or plant trees in support of neighborhood recovery efforts, and throw up tents and tables at community events.  

Rewards include trips to college campuses, science centers, even natural caves and the beaches of the Pacific Ocean – enrichment they had never before experienced. With pizza and movie tickets as currency, and adult mentors always along for the ride, teachers noticed changes in MACH members, and referred more students they believed would benefit. Today, MACH has 130 participants.

MACH members are encouraged to participate in monthly community service projects and 70 percent do, earning rewards along the way. Twenty percent have even converted volunteer work into part-time jobs. Together they racked up 1,200 in service hours last year.

They are the backbone of community events ranging from iFest and Kids Day to Fourth of July to the Christmas Tree Lighting. They help with set-up and when everybody is dog-tired at the end of an event, a fresh crew of MACH kids arrive to clean up the mess. They will be at it again in this room tonight.

Conrade and his fellow mentors surely deserve recognition of their own, but this award is for the kids, a bunch of whom are in the room right now. To you, we say this:
  • You think you are worthless? The people you are helping do not think so. 
  • You think you have nothing to give? You make our day when you arrive ready to help.  
  • You think you can’t accomplish anything? You already have – over and over. 
  • You think you are all alone in this world? You have friends who care about you, which frees you to care about others.  
MACH may not have all the answers, but it has one thing, and that is love for these kids. And they are responding – not perfectly – but moving in the right direction.

So, for all the heavy lifting, hard work, and simply defying the odds by staying in school, we thank you! Together you have made a difference. And we love you for it.

Congratulations Mentees at Cordova High for Distinguished Teen Service.
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