AUBURN - Fingers wrapped around a pencil, Genesee Elementary School student Kiarah Pertilla scanned a word search assigned to her for homework on Tuesday.

Sitting around a table in the school cafeteria, Pertilla, 8, of Auburn, looked line by line for the word “shirt” while Allie Mack, an eighth-grader from West Middle School, watched over the third-grader's shoulder, providing guidance, support and homework help when Pertilla needed it.

Pertilla and Mack, along with 23 other pairs of Genesee Elementary and West Middle students meet every Tuesday in the elementary cafeteria for Y-Pals, a mentoring program facilitated by the Auburn YMCA-WEIU. For a half hour each week, middle school students help the elementary school students with their homework, read books together, play educational games or just simply talk.

“I really like working with younger kids,” said Mack, 13, of Auburn. “I have two younger siblings, and it's good that we can help them and have one-on-one time instead of standing in front of the classroom.”

“I think the best part of Y-Pals is that we can do our work here and have fun here,” Pertilla said.

Originally Big Brothers Big Sisters, Y-Pals moved to the YMCA on Williams Street in 2003 when the program did not have an executive director, said Sharon Collins, director of Y-Pals. That same year, the program expanded beyond the traditional community-based program - in which a community member 19 years old or older mentors a child - to include a program based entirely in schools.

“We'd take older students who are good role models and they'd go into schools to mentor kids that are at-risk in some way,” said Collins, referring to the need for these children to have additional support building confidence and self-esteem, receiving some homework help and doing well in school.

Y-Pals is currently in all eight of the Auburn Enlarged City School District buildings: Auburn High School, East and West Middle schools, Casey Park, Genesee, Herman Avenue, Owasco and Seward Elementary schools, as well as in the Southern Cayuga Central School District and the Moravia Central School District.

Two years ago, Y-Pals established a program in Genesee Elementary School with school social worker George Whipple as the program facilitator. While the other elementary schools received mentor volunteers from Auburn High School, Collins and Susan Scheuerman, an Auburn Board of Education Member and Y-Pals employee, saw an opportunity to get honors students from West Middle School - a school just a block away from the elementary school - involved in the program.

During the first year of operation, only 13 elementary and 13 middle school students met weekly, Scheuerman said. A year later, that number has doubled.

“We anticipate that it will continue (to grow) in that vein,” Scheuerman said. “It's very well received. The students from West are very responsible and are very committed.”

After an evaluation, Collins and Scheuerman has seen that the program has positive impact on self-esteem and academic achievement,“ making them feel better about coming to school and doing well in school,” Collins said.

“The idea of our kids as the mentors is that they understand the connections kids make with kids,” Scheuerman said. “Our kids want to be useful, and our kids are being useful by helping kids out. That's what this is all about.”

Chris Nelson, 8, of Auburn said that he likes the homework help his Y-Pal Bailey Crook, 13, of Auburn, gives.

On Tuesday Crook helped Nelson rewrite a letter he wrote to Santa, then helped him color a dinosaur.

“He learns more and gets his homework done,” Crook said. “And I learn how to work with kids in case I want to work with kids when I get older.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at alyssa.sunkin@lee.net or 253-5311 ext. 239