Volunteer Youth Mentor: Help Us Empower Girls

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Circle Program is a nonprofit with a mission to empower, transform, and enrich girls' lives through community, connection, and camp.

As a mentor, you will get to experience the unique opportunity of a one-on-one mentorship, changing the life of a girl.


Our History:

The Circle Program was founded in 1993 by trustees of Camp Onaway, a camp for girls on Newfound Lake in Hebron, New Hampshire. The Onaway trustees wanted to create a summer camp program for disadvantaged New Hampshire girls, but also recognized that a few weeks at camp might not be enough to make a sustainable difference in the girls’ lives. They modeled the Circle Program after the Mayhew Program for boys and combined residential summer camp with year-round, one-to-one mentoring. The Circle Program is the only program of its kind serving girls in New Hampshire. It is also one of the only programs in the country that combines camp and mentoring for rural girls.

We fulfill our mission by providing the girls with a unique combination of adult and peer support that is delivered through camp and mentoring and applied by utilizing the core values of Positive Youth Development and Social-Emotional Learning. Girls are referred to the Circle Program between the ages of nine and eleven by teachers, guidance counselors, and social workers. They are considered to be at-risk because their families meet the federal income guidelines for free or reduced-price school lunch.

The girls are able to remain enrolled in the Circle Program through high school graduation. They begin their participation with a three-week session at our camp on Spectacle Pond in Groton, New Hampshire. Circle Camp provides the foundation for our program. After camp, each girl is paired with an adult volunteer mentor from her community. The girls and mentors meet at least twice a month from September through June. Every month, the girls and mentors come together for a group activity, which allows the girls to maintain the connections and friendships they made at camp. Girls return to camp for a second summer and then spend a second year with their mentors before moving on to the Teen Camp session and mentoring program.

The Teen Camp session is just over two weeks long, and begins after the conclusion of the three-week session in late July. Girls who have moved to the teen portion of our program continue to meet with their mentors at least once per month throughout the school year, and have a host of different group activities they may attend on a monthly basis as well, geared toward social and life skill-building appropriate for their age and stage. Girls have the opportunity to attend Teen Camp for up to three years - through the ninth grade.

Girls who choose to remain involved in the program after the ninth grade continue to meet with their mentor and attend teen group activities, and also have the opportunity to participate in the Teen Adventure Program (TAP). TAP is a week-long camp session held at the end of the summer. Girls in grades ten through twelve spend two nights at camp preparing for a three-day, three-night offsite camping trip that includes a variety of activities such as hiking, kayaking, swimming, and team-building exercises