Targum spotlight: Pilot Me educates, provides outlet for New Brunswick youth
Pilot Me is an on-campus student organization where undergraduates provide community service and educational mentorship to New Brunswick youth.
Pilot Me's goals include creating a positive educational environment for New Brunswick children, training Rutgers students to become mentors and bridging the University and its surrounding regions through community service, according to the club's GetINVOLVED page.
The organization meets every Friday in the New Brunswick Free Public Library to coordinate activities such as crafts and games that encourage engagement among local youth and club members.
Kashish Bhavsar, a School of Nursing junior and co-president of Pilot Me, said it is important for Rutgers students to establish connections with the New Brunswick community.
"By engaging with the local community, students have the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of those around them," she said. "It is important for children to learn from older mentors at the college age to learn about life and to have someone to look up to as a role model and for guidance and support."
The selection process for becoming a mentor in Pilot Me includes an application that asks about the candidate's experience with children, Bhavsar said. The organization then interviews potential mentors to envision how they would fit into Pilot Me, she added.
Dev Amin, a School of Arts and Sciences senior and co-president of Pilot Me, said the University community should engage with the surrounding city because they inhabit mutual spaces.
"Pilot Me is a very free and open space, and kids and mentors are always encouraged to be themselves and interact with each other on a level that they are most comfortable with,” Amin said.
Priya Mehta, a School of Arts and Sciences senior and vice president of Pilot Me, said she hopes that this semester's Pilot Me mentors will understand that they can learn to communicate, gain confidence and have fun while serving the community.
"I also hope the (mentees) learn that they are fully the best versions of themselves and continue to be able to express that," Mehta said.
Bhavsar said her favorite activity that the organization has completed was this semester's Friendsgiving Day event, where participants played Thanksgiving-themed games and indulged in typical Thanksgiving-related dishes such as mac and cheese and pie.
Amin recalls that his favorite activity that the program hosted was a carnival day in the Spring 2022 semester. The event's venue was equipped and catered as if it were a real carnival, including snacks, music and prizes.
"The kids absolutely loved it and had the best energy, and it was so much fun to play all the games with them and just have a really genuinely good time," Amin said.
Every fall, the organization invites previous participants to rejoin for the coming year and distributes forms at the New Brunswick Free Public Library for new families to apply.
