A national program aimed at giving young children positive role models who are college student mentors is starting its first year on the UW-Eau Claire campus.

This year Jumpstart offered Eau Claire students mentor roles.

Prospective students for the program underwent a series of interviews and, out of nearly 200 applicants, 40 were chosen by the university, said Jane Linton, Eau Claire’s Jumpstart director.

Jumpstart members work with children ages 3 to 5 years old and serve as positive mentors for children who might be lacking that influence.

The goal of the program is to prepare every child, one at a time, to enter school and finish successfully.

Four students will travel to New York Thursday through Sunday to represent Eau Claire at the Jumpstart training workshop for new team leaders.

Juniors Cory Galston and Sadie O’Connor and sophomores Renae Haug and Crystal Jackson will attend the East Coast event.

Each student was selected for the trip based on his or her experience with children and leadership qualities.

The group is further broken down into four teams of 10 students. Team leaders are chosen to run each group, said O’Connor, a mass communication/public relations double major.

She said she is excited for Jumpstart’s initial year.

“Everyone is young and really full of energy,” O’Connor said. “It will be a learning process.”

Jumpstart leaders work directly with a child and help to improve his or her early language, literacy and social skills. Family involvement is emphasized as a means of supporting the child’s learning process.

The Eau Claire student leaders must complete 60 hours of training before they begin mentoring.

After training is complete, they will travel to area preschools and work one-on-one with the children twice a week.

Jumpstart was founded at Yale University in 1993. It is a national organization that includes 50 different colleges and universities from across the country.

Last year, Jumpstart served 3,200 children in 169 classrooms.