May Mentoring Events

May Mentoring Events. Two photos against a rainbow background. One showing the interior of Anime Boston, and the other showing participants at a Mentor Mixer.

May was a busy month for the PYD Mentoring Team. We had a blast hosting events for mentors and mentees. This month, we held a Mentor Mixer and went to Anime Boston! Here were some highlights:

Mentor Mixers

Every month our mentoring team hosts Mentor Mixers as an opportunity for current and future mentors and mentees to gather and connect with each other. These events take place at the PYD office and include an evening of food, music, games, crafts, and fun.

Two photos against a rainbow background. The left shows mentors and mentees at a Mentor Mixer. The right shows a photo of PYD participants sitting in front of a TV, playing a game with each other.

There are a variety of activities for everyone. Held at our office in Boston, mentors and mentees can choose from interactive games, music, and food. If participants need a quieter space, there’s a separate room with a craft station. 

Two photos on a rainbow background. The left shows participants in a conference room, around a large table, working on a craft while listening to music. The right shows the same participants, but at a different angle.

The events are also a way to meet new friends. Mentor Alec spoke about his plans to get him and his mentee on an outing with another mentor/mentee duo. We can’t wait to hear about their future adventures!

Anime Boston

As a fun way to end the month, PYD staff, mentors and mentees, and their families’ tickets attended Anime Boston Micah Luen, Mentoring Coordinator, detailed their experience:

“I went to Anime Boston with my fiancé, Phil, and we had so much fun! PYD was generously given 20 tickets to give to our youth and their mentors or families. This was my second time going to the convention – my first Anime Boston was in 2023, through PYD as well.

Left - Micah Luen and their partner. Right - a large room with books, the library at Anime Boston.

I was particularly interested in the Dealer’s Room and the Artist Alley; both were held in exhibition rooms and were both awesome and also very overwhelming. We both found some cool merch and trinkets featuring some of our favorite franchises – Berserk, Touhou Project, Stardew Valley, and Hamtaro.

There were a lot of cool panels as well, like “Fruits Basket and the Inevitability of Love”, “Rebuilding the Millenium Puzzle: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters History” and “Black Characters Matter: The Intersection of Race and Otaku Culture”.

We recognized a lot of cool cosplays while we were there – some notable ones were characters from Runescape, Knight Artorias from Dark Souls, Saber from Fate Stay Night (one of my favorite anime characters of all time), and I even saw a really cute and fun group cosplay from the R.E.P.O. video game!

After some time, we wanted a chill place to collect ourselves, so we went to the Manga Library to see what it was about. You could borrow a manga book by trading in your badge temporarily to the staff librarian and then find a spot to settle down and read. I found a copy of With the Light, by Keiko Tobe, which is about a young mother’s, Sachiko, struggles and joys of raising her autistic son, Hikaru, in modern Japan.

Left - several manga comic books on shelves at Anime Boston. Right - Keiko Tobe's With The Light: Raising an Autistic Child.

Overall, we had a great time and appreciated the quiet spaces that Anime Boston offered for those of us who get overstimulated so that we could chill out for a bit.

Later on in the day, I got an email from a mentor who brought her mentee sharing that they had an awesome time at Anime Boston and were so happy they got a chance to experience it together through PYD.

Overall, it was a great experience, it seemed like our youth and their mentors / families had fun too and we are all looking forward to next year!”

Here is what a mentor who attended the event with their mentee had to say:

‘We attended the Anime Convention through PYD and had the best time!! We saw so many cool and elaborate cosplays, admired a bunch of different kinds of art, and had fun window shopping all of the merch. Neither of us had ever been to an anime convention (or any convention) so it was a great way to expand our horizons and bond over a new experience. We ended our day with some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory while discussing everything we saw. Thanks PYD for the opportunity!!!’ 

– PYD Mentor

Whether you joined us at a larger event like Anime Boston, or at one of our many Mentor Mixers at the PYD office, we were so glad to see you. If you haven’t participated in a Mentoring event yet, we hope to see you at a future event!