We can all be the mentor we wish we had as young people, and there are numerous programs that need our help.

In a front page story published in Wednesday’s edition of The Sun, Baker Intermediate School put out an open call for volunteers to mentor students at the local fifth- and sixth-grade center.

The program has already grown mounds since it’s inception, but there are still many students are Baker and other local schools who could benefit from more positive adult role models.

In Wednesday’s article, local volunteer Brett Cheuvront told his personal story about mentoring Baker student Damien Coleman.

Cheuvront said he became a mentor last year because he wanted to help people, and he had wished he had a mentor at a young age.

That’s what we should all strive to do, whether it be at Baker, another local school, through Partners In Education at the Rowland Arts Center downtown or the new Clark County Child Development Center slated to open this summer. Maybe we invest our time volunteering as a youth sports coach or teaching a Sunday school class at our church.

Maybe the impact starts in our own families by making an additional effort to be stellar role models for young relatives.

And it can start with something as simple as showing kindness, offering help with homework, taking a walk together or listening as a young person shares about their struggles, hopes and aspirations.

If we all think back we probably had those great adult role models who we look up to still to this day. If we didn’t, we likely wish we had someone who we could have aspired to be like and who made us feel like we were capable of reaching our goals.

Let’s all make more effort to be role models for the younger generation in Winchester-Clark County.