Peter Vanacore with his wife, Dianne
Photo/submitted
By Sue Wambolt, Contributing Writer
Westborough – Westborough resident Peter Vanacore has been ministering to youth for more than 35 years.
Vanacore, 60, began his service in 1978 through Youth for Christ on Long Island. In 1996 he moved to Massachusetts to become the New England director for Straight Ahead Ministries, becoming the national field director in 2000. There, he helped develop the School of Juvenile Justice Ministry.
In 2003, after leaving Straight Ahead, Vanacore started the Christian Mentoring Institute (CMI). CMI merged with Christian Association of Youth Mentoring (CAYM) in 2005 and two years later, in 2007, Vanacore became the executive director. He remains in this position today, devoting his life to transforming the lives of young people in the name of Jesus Christ.
Vanacore has a master’s degree in social work from Fordham University. It was during his time as an undergraduate student that he decided to dedicate his life to working with youth.
“I grew up in a good home with great parents, but somehow I managed to mess things up. By the time I turned 21, my life was filled with self-destructive behaviors,” Vanacore said. “An older grad student at my college impressed me by the way she approached life and treated others. One day after a particularly harrowing experience I asked her, ‘What do you have that I don’t have?’ She simply responded that she has a relationship with God through his son, Jesus.”
After this exchange, Vanacore started reading the Bible and joined a campus Christian fellowship where he was mentored by one of the staff. As his faith deepened, Vanacore became convinced that working with youth was his calling. Now, 37 years later, he continues to live out his calling at CAYM, an organization which trains, equips and coaches church and nonprofit organizations to either establish or enhance their mentoring ministries.
“We help nonprofits and churches design and implement mentoring programs that are safe, effective and sustainable. Our vision is to see mentoring become part of the DNA of every church,” said Vanacore. “Our goal is to help Christians move outside the doors of the church to impact their communities through caring mentoring relationships.”
According to Vanacore, we live in a hectic and disconnected world in which we often forget the natural power of intergenerational relationships that have been a foundation of the human experience. He sees mentoring as a formal way to reintroduce these cross-generational links into the lives of kids who lack them.
“Personally, I want to bring hope into the lives of kids and families who are without the resources to experience all the potential God has put into their lives,” he said.
Investing in the lives of young people is Vanacore’s mission in life. And, while he does not always see the fruits of his labor, there are times when he does – and the rewards are far-reaching.
“A few years ago I had dinner in Oregon with two men I had mentored several decades earlier. Their families were with us and after the meal their wives and children came to me individually and thanked me for the impact I had on their husbands and fathers,” Vanacore shared. “A few months later I was diagnosed with cancer and was told to prepare for months of brutal treatments. That one evening gave me an extra jolt of strength to face an uncertain future. Now that I am cancer-free, I look back on that moment as further inspiration to help get a mentor to every kid who needs an extra role model.”
Vanacore and his wife, Dianne, live in Westborough. They have three grown children and one grandchild. They attend Church of the Nativity in Northborough.
To learn more about CAYM, visit www.caym.org.
