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Volunteer Mentor Resources

Here, you can find resources to be a great mentor, including activities to do in Yellowknife with your mentee, training opportunities, and education opportunities. 

Free / low-cost indoor activities for all ages

  • Make a scrapbook of your experiences together

    • Steps include buying the scrapbook together, taking at least one photo together every time you're together, going to Walmart together to pick up printed photos, writing a story about the best part of the hang out, etc.

  • Enter a contest together. (Pumpkin carving, art contests, etc.)

  • Attend a community event 

  • Go ice skating (at ice rink during free skate, will have to coordinate skates and helmets for your mentee beforehand)

  • Have a movie night - make popcorn, ice cream floats etc. (if hosting at your own home, need to have your home approved beforehand)

  • Play board games, chess, card games - if you do not know how, learn together

  • Bake bread or make your own pizza

  • Make your own ice cream

  • Teach courtesy, respect for others, values. Talk about ways to handle different issues. Use “What if” Scenarios

  • Learn a foreign language together or study another culture

  • Learn about where community resources are and how to obtain them

  • Learn to draw, paint or sculpt

  • Call the local library about story hours or have your own story time

  • Tackle some homework together

  • Cook a meal together

  • Write a letter. Talk to the school about finding a penpal for you and your mentee

  • Build something together (model car, LEGOS). They will be excited to continue on your next hangout

  • Make an “activities jar” to pull from each meeting. Both you and your mentee can decide on things to write and place in it in the jar

  • Take your mentee on errand runs. (If older, help with some of their errands)

  • Go to a cafe

  • Go to the VR cafe

Free / low cost activities

Youth-specific activities

  • Arrange for your mentee to meet professionals you know in fields of their interest to talk about what they do and how they got there

  • Do a pretend job interview

  • Work on a resume

  • Go to a drop in sports night, such as the City of Yellowknife basketball drop-in

Youth-specific activities

Outdoor activities

  • Walk dogs at the SPCA (your and/or your mentee will need to have completed the volunteer orientation with an SPCA staff prior to taking dogs out on your own. Reach out to the SPCA to coordinate this. Please know they are typically understaffed so you may hev to reach out a few times before you receive an answer)

  • Walk a dog that you know

  • Workout at an outdoor gym area

  • Try different sports: basketball, soccer, volleyball

  • Go for a hike

  • Go to a public day use area and have a fire (enure to bring everything you need such as a lighter, cardboard, firewood, a camping chair, and maybe some smores!)

  • Go fishing (open water/ice fishing) 

  • Toss a frisbee or fly a kite

  • Go to the beach

  • Make paper airplanes and fly/race them

  • Start a garden. Learn about soil and plants, vegetables and fruits

  • Go to a baseball game. If your workplace has a softball team, invite your mentee to a game

  • Have a water balloon fight

  • Make lemonade. Set up a lemonade stand and talk about running a business

  • Wash your car or a friends car

  • Field trips: historical places, police and fire department

  • Visit your city’s web site for a list of free summer activities like concerts or plays in the park, festivals and fairs

  • Go rock hunting, glue rocks together and paint them as sculptures or paint funny faces/encouraging words and place them around the community to make people's day better

  • Go for a picnic

  • Go visit the stables (on the highway out to Behchoko)

  • Go sledding (tobogganing)

  • Build a snowman

  • Ice skating at outdoor community rinks (Rat Lake and Houseboat Bay have great outdoor rinks!)

  • Learn how to set up a snare

  • Build an igloo or quinzee

  • Cook dinner over a fire

  • Snowboarding at Bristol Pit

  • Go look at Christmas decorations/lights

  • Attend community events (fish camps, hunting camps, mit making workshops, beading workshops etc) 

Outdoor Activities

Activities with fees

Activities with fees

Activities at a distance

  • Play an online game together. (Words Chums, Quizup, Uno, etc) Ask your mentee what games they currently play that are multiplayer

  • Movie night. Netflix, Disney Plus have a feature to allow multiple people to watch the same movie/show at the same time

  • Book club, pick a book together and meet via ZOOM/FaceTime to talk about the book

  • Make a playlist for one another with your top 5 favourite songs, listen to the songs and meet up to chat about the songs

  • Create a journal. Feel free to add themes such as “Top 3 things from my week?” Share with one another on an agreed timeline

  • Cook/bake together via ZOOM/FaceTime

  • Do crafts together via ZOOM/FaceTime

  • E-visit a museum together

Activities at a distance
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