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Notable New Yorker: Matilda Cuomo

NEW YORK (CBS) ― Anyone who has ever achieved anything has had someone help him or her. That's what Matilda Cuomo believes. She wrote a book about the value of a mentor, but not before she created one of the country's first mentoring networks.
"I had a wonderful 3rd grade and 6th grade teacher, and they really change my life," Cuomo said. 

A school teacher by trade, Cuomo spent 12 years as First Lady of New York, but it was in 1987 that her mission really developed. 

"It really changed my life. Going to Albany changed my life, when my husband asked me in 1987 to investigate why young people were dropping out of high school and said we had to stop this. We can't let it continue tolerate it. He put me to work with a bi-partisan committee to look into a mentoring program statewide," Cuomo explained.  

"I always thought my credentials was a mother of five children and 12 grandchildren," Cuomo said. 

The result was "Mentoring USA," matching young adults with New York City public school children "on the brink of success."

"Children naturally can thrive with someone outside of the family, someone they look up to," Cuomo said. 

It's not always an easy match.

Mentee Ashley Clarke knows that first-hand. "It was going rough at first. I'm a stubborn person."

Her mentor Pia Hurst elaborates: "The first few months we didnt talk much. We spent a lot of time sitting across from each other another interacting, arguing a bit."

"She's a big sister to me now," Clarke said. "She's a good person. She's always giving me advice with friends, and before, I didn't want to talk to her. I had a bad attitude now I have a positive person hanging around here."

The results are obvious. And mentor Pia Hurst just found out she got into medical school.

"Realizing that you have the power to have an impact on someones life; I've matured too and I am getting older and I can be looked at as a role model," Hurst said.

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