TAKE A REAL LUNCH BREAK.
Chaining yourself to a desk or scarfing down your lunch in your cubicle isn’t a recipe for success. Taking adequate breaks from work has been shown to improve productive, mental well-being, and overall work performance! Overworked employees often deal with chronic stress that can easily lead to job burnout.
While 29% of employees admit to working during their lunch breaks, 71% of employees report spending their lunch doing the following things:
lunch time activity
- Surf the web/social media
- Catch up on personal calls/emails
- Socialize with coworkers
- Run errands
- Read
- Exercise/take a walk
- Surf the web/social media
- Catch up on personal calls/emails
- Socialize with coworkers
- Run errands
- Read
- Exercise/take a walk
Imagine if you could break away from your desk and make a difference in someone’s life by investing just one 30 minute lunch a week. School leaders are experiencing overwhelming challenges to educate students and increase high school graduation rates. These challenges are staggering as it relates to students in poverty, particularly African-American and Hispanic students.
Students who grow up in poverty face challenges that produce low self-esteem and worries, making it difficult for them to be ready to learn and succeed. Statistics and case studies show, these students will especially benefit from having an additional caring adult in their lives.
Students who face an opportunity gap but have a mentor are 55% more likely to go to college than those who did not have a mentor. (The Mentoring Effect, 2014)
In addition to better school attendance and a better chance of going on to higher education, mentored youth maintain better attitudes toward school. (The Role of Risk, 2013)
Mentors can offer advice, share life experiences, and help a young person navigate challenges. The Lunch Buddies mentoring program pairs professional Memphians with 2 students for a 30 minute lunch each week. The mentor can choose the best day, and the day is flexible. Hundreds of local professionals have made a difference in a student’s life by becoming a Lunch Buddy.
“It’s refreshing to hear about a student’s successes and coach them through their failures. It’s incredibly rewarding for them to be so excited to share these experiences with me.”
Mentoring as a Lunch Buddy can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only do statistics suggest that mentoring can be an extremely worthwhile way of giving back to your community, but it can also be a highly personal experience that leads to lasting relationships between mentors and mentees.
Want to learn more about being a Lunch Buddy?
Make plans to attend one of our upcoming info sessions. You’re not obligated to become a Lunch Buddy if you attend. Oh, and lunch is on us!