It’s Not What You Give It’s What You Get

By Yvonne Carey Lederer

After a wildly successful 13 years helping high school girls achieve dreams beyond their potential with co-founder Jennifer Valoppi, the uber-committed President of Women of Tomorrow (WOT), he makes a point of noting several instances where his brush with former mentees made him beam, and when mentors who concluded the commitment to WOT have called and remarked how wonderful being mentors made then feel.

“The effect is surprisingly fast and profound,” said Browne. I am an ‘evangelist’ for the organization.” Browne recalls the first person who mentored him - his mother Rosanna Browne. “She was a rock,” begins Browne. “I grew up in a challenged environment and she gave me dedication and always made me believe women are capable of doing anything. And that is a very powerful idea.” Years later, it was Rosanna who introduced him to Valoppi, then working at another station under contract, and though he couldn’t work with her, he kept in touch and later, convinced her to come down to Miami to work on resurrecting WTVJ.

But when in 1997 the chance to team up with Valoppi to help small groups of atrisk young girls overcome self-defeating psychological barriers of inferiority, he jumped at the chance. Valoppi’s goal was to reach out to young girls after researching how much a young woman’s perspective changes between ninth and tenth grades, to teach them about the great opportunities that await them. Together they hand-selected 23 Founding Mentors and formed a plan to have a WOT School Coordinator identify a number of young girls who would be likely candidates who then would become WOT mentees.

They were then indoctrinated into the program and could get paired with one strong, inspiring professional woman mentor and a host of guest speakers who teach topics ranging from skin care to financial planning. Former WOT mentee and Broward County resident Abby Brown, who was referred to the program by a teacher, when she was in the 9th grade said that it saved her life. “My grandmother, who was my primary caregiver, was murdered and my family split apart. And when I went to a foster home I was completely stressed out. I was teamed up with a judge and it was the first time I ever felt special. She helped me get clothes, she called about my grades. She empowered me,” Brown said.

Currently, there are 100 schools in 42 Florida cities participating in the program. WOT now even has a variety of college scholarships. Valoppi credits the organization’s great success to its mentors, on which its backbone rests. Every year the organization collects quality professionals who are dedicated and give the girls what they need. Looking back, Valoppi remembers her own grandmother as a wise mentor. An Armenian immigrant, who had survived a refugee camp – after fleeing the Turkish massacre of the Armenians just before WWI – Lucy Sarkisian laced the survival stories she told a young Jennifer with humanity and dignity. “She never traumatized us, but instead taught us how as humans, we are capable of anything.

Don (Browne) has been known throughout his career as a mentor, helping women and minorities all the way. Because we have been an extremely successful organization, completely unique to the country, people are looking to us for national expansion,” Valoppi said. WOT mentor and Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle also credits mentoring as the backbone of her own success. “Mentoring is a strategy that works.” Interestingly, after all the mentee success stories, Browne still coyly hints that WOT’s driving force may in fact have to do with its surprising ancillary benefit. “I think we are giving the mentee a chance to help the mentor. You get more out of it in that role. You get fullfillment.”