A La Porte County Life in the Spotlight: Gretchen Kubit

Gretchen Kubit serves as the School Buddies director for the Youth Service Bureau (YSB) of La Porte County. She is originally from Rolling Prairie just outside of La Porte County. 

“For pretty much my whole life, I’ve been in and around the La Porte area,” Kubit said.

As a YSB program, School Buddies facilitates mentorship opportunities to grade school and high school students. Currently, Kubit works with children in La Porte County as young as 5 and as old as 17.

“Some of our mentees can be in kindergarten, but we also have a great deal of them that go all the way up to high school age,” Kubit said.

Kubit works with the La Porte County School Buddies team to pair mentees with mentors. Mentees can be matched with mentors at a very young age. Ideally, a mentor will remain paired with his or her mentee through the mentee’s high school years.

“We usually start our matches in elementary school and if both the mentor and the mentee can continue on, they will do so throughout middle school into high school,” Kubit said.

School Buddies and Kubit also have partnerships with local high schools with students who may not have the need to enroll in School Buddies as a mentee, but have an interest in serving as a mentor.

The aspiring mentors can come in and meet with students in other La Porte County schools,” Kubit said.

YSB has several locations across Indiana and nationwide. However, School Buddies is relatively new to Indiana. The first School Buddies Program was established through the La Porte County YSB, and a second just opened in Michigan City to assist some of the elementary schools.

In addition to her role as School Buddies director for the La Porte County YSB, Kubit is a wife and mother. 

“I have three kids who tend to keep me pretty busy,” she said.

When she works with the children enrolled in School Buddies, Kubit often relies on her experience as a mother.

“I’m very grateful that I get to see both dynamics – that I can help my kids and be that mother, that role model to them, and also to the youth that I work with,” Kubit said.

Even before she was a mother herself, Kubit loved children. 

“I was an aunt first, and I took that role very seriously,” she said. “I love kids. I don’t know what it is about them that I’ve always just been drawn to working with them.”

Kubit’s education only enhanced her innate talent and passion for working with children. 

“I feel like I can make a connection with them,” she said. “My schooling has helped this so much, learning about kids and their development and how to help them. They’re just so different from us adults, and they’re growing and learning every day.”

Kubit attended New Prairie High School. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from Purdue University Northwest, and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Indiana University Northwest.

During her free time, she enjoys reading, skiing, and being with her children.