Mayor Scott Avedisian and Peter Koch are going toe to toe, and tip for tip.

Avedisian plans to go all out for top honors in the Dancing With The Stars fundraiser for the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership in April, a title that Koch has won twice. But, while Koch is formidable on his feet, he faces a challenge if he intends to surpass the mayor’s behind the bar.

Last month, Avedisian mixed and served drinks at Jim Flanagan’s Shannon View Inn, raising more than $2,100 in tips for Neighbors Helping Neighbors, the program that provides food market certificates and food baskets for more than 1,000 needy individuals and families each Thanksgiving and Christmas.

This Saturday, starting at 1 p.m. Koch steps behind the bar at Shannon View. What tips he collects will go to the Rhode Island Mentoring Partnership. Koch is a member of that agency’s board that oversees statewide programs pairing more than 4,000 students with mentors. In Warwick, more than 300 mentors from businesses and non-profits work with kids for at least an hour a week during the school year.

With so many mentors in the programs, Koch hopes for a good turnout Saturday, and perhaps some friendly advice when it comes to more than drawing a beer or pouring a Dewar’s and water, which happens to be his own preference.

But then Koch’s acquaintances go far beyond mentoring.

It’s a Koch tradition to mail Christmas cards featuring him and some of the celebrities and movers and shakers he’s hobnobbed with in the past year. This year’s card features a smiling Peter and a smiling actor, Michael Douglas. In past years, Koch has been pictured with the bevy of head turners in Deal or No Deal, even, on a far more serious note, Mikhail Gorbachev. He’s got connections.

Koch plans to email his friends.

How long is the list? Koch wasn’t sure, maybe 500.

The Shannon View has made celebrity bartending a terrific fundraiser for non-profits. He has boosted tips with contributions of his own.

However it goes Saturday afternoon, Avedisian and Koch say the real winners are the students who benefit from a mentor. Working toward that end promises to be fun.

Who knows? Maybe Avedisian will step behind the bar to help.

We can all use a mentor.