Withrow partner Luxottica wins mentoring award

Withrow University High School partner Luxottica recently won a prestigious corporate mentoring award from the National Mentoring Partnership and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

Luxottica was among just four corporations—the others were Bank of America, Coastway Community Bank and The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co.—to receive the recognition through its participation in the Corporate Mentoring Challenge, originally launched by first lady Michelle Obama in 2011.

The companies were honored during an awards ceremony Jan. 30-31, 2014, at the fourth annual National Mentoring Summit at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. Featured speakers included legendary baseball Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripken Jr. and NBC Meet the Press moderator David Gregory. More than 700 youth mentoring practitioners, researchers, advocates, corporate partners, government and civic leaders, national youth-serving organizations and the network of Mentoring Partnerships attended the conference.

Luxottica was honored in the “Most Robust and Comprehensive Engagement in Mentoring-Local” category.

Luxottica employees based at the company’s North America Retail & Eyemed headquarters in Mason designed a workplace mentoring program to support and inspire Withrow students to graduate from high school and go on to college. Each year since 2001, 45 students in grades 9-12 have been matched with Luxottica mentors. An additional 1,350 students at the school are supported in school with technology-based initiatives.

“At Luxottica, we’re committed to helping the world see,” Carlo Privitera, chief operating officer of Luxottica North America, said. “Through our Student Mentoring Program, we’re enabling students to see a brighter future by interacting with our professional team members who are invested in the students’ high school and long-term success. We’re honored that our associates’ passion for mentoring is being recognized.”

FamiliesFORWARD staff members at the school, through support programming, work with the Luxottica mentoring team to help students and the mentors reach their goals.