Lee University’s Starlite Ministries mentors freshmen to college life

By Lindsay Morris
Cleveland Daily Banner
 

                Freshman girls at Lee University won’t feel so lost this fall as they enter their first semester of college.  With the help of Starlite Ministries, first-year females can become acclimated with college life through the guidance of a mentor.

                Established in fall 2003 by then 18-year-old Amy Beth Bullard, Starlite Ministries pairs freshmen with upperclassmen in an attempt to help the freshmen feel more at home. 

                Bullard started Starlite, sponsored by Westmore Church of God’s College and Career Class, after experiencing the difficulties of transitioning into college. 

                “When I was a freshman, I had a really rough start.” Bullard said.  “I was homesick when I never thought I would be and really felt like I’d missed what God wanted me to do with my life.”

                After contemplating leaving school, she decided to stay and finished her freshman year with ease.

                While preparing to return to Lee the following semester, Bullard began to brainstorm how to help first-year students feel more comfortable with the college transition. 

                “When school started back, I went to the resident director of one of the dorms and I said, ‘If you have a lonesome freshman girl, let me help her.’”

                The RD’s response was more than Bullard expected.

                “She said, ‘Actually we need a program for this.’”

                That semester, with the help of some friends, Bullard organized a mentoring program that partnered 30 freshmen with 30 upperclassmen from Lee’s all-girls dorm, Atkins-Ellis.

                It wasn’t long before Starlite took a serious role in the lives of the girls.

                “Mentors started coming to my room at 1 or 2 in the morning saying “I took my freshman girl out for ice cream and she told me that she has an eating disorder, what do I do now?” or “My freshman girl confided in me that she was or is being abused, what do I do?” Bullard said. “Obviously, the natural step was to get those girls into counseling, but we wanted to take something beyond that.”

                Thus came the Starlite Experience, an invitation-only conference held on Nov. 15, 2003, in Lee’s Centenary room.  The conference focused on encouraging and educating the ladies about issues relating to them.

                It was during the conference Bullard came to an actualization that would change her program.

                “I realized that not everyone is perfect and people have real hurts, real pain and need a real God to meet those needs.”

                Only a year later, Starlite is going campus wide.  At a social held by Starlite last week, more than 400 freshman women signed up for a mentor.