Mentoring Mentors Nonprofit Seeks Funding and Partnership to Support its Intergenerational Near-to-Peer Model
Mentoring Mentors was founded in 2014 by Alphonso Mayo, who was the first in his family to graduate from college.
Baltimore, Maryland, Oct. 20, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mentoring Mentors, a Baltimore-based nonprofit organization, has announced that it is expanding its near-to-peer mentorship program to improve the lives of Black and Brown youth. To achieve this, it is looking to gain additional support through funding and partnerships with other organizations, such as universities, mental health groups, and other advocacy-driven entities.
Mentoring Mentors was founded in 2014 by Alphonso Mayo, who was the first in his family to graduate from college. According to Mayo, he became a father at a young age, causing him to drop out from college. However, he promised his grandmother that he would return and finish his education. After her passing, Mayo honored this promise and went back to graduate and soon began his mentoring journey by coaching football.
Alphonso Mayo, Founder and CEO of Mentoring Mentors
“I started coaching in Glen Burnie, a suburb of Maryland, thinking it was a better place,” Mayo says. “But, to my surprise, the problems I saw in the inner city were still there. While crime wasn’t as high, social problems such as poverty and single-parent families were still rampant among the African-American population. I thought that, if I wanted to make an impact on the lives of the young men I was coaching, football alone wasn't going to save lives. I realized that access to information and positive relationships are what save lives.”
Mayo began his program by promising his players that if they did community service, stayed out of trouble and did well in their academics, he would help them get recruited by Division 1 colleges to the best of his ability. This resulted in several of his players being picked up by good college programs and even playing in the pro leagues.
The resulting violence from the 2015 Baltimore Uprising disrupted the community service programs, but, despite the players being close to some of the people who were participating in the rioting, they chose to not get involved and respect the commitment they made to Mayo and the principals he set out for them. These events showed Mayo that he was on the right track with what he was doing and that his organization could have a greater impact in the lives of young people of the community.
“It really helped me understand mentorship and its essence, as well as the way that we define mentorship as a country from a broader perspective,” Mayo says. “Mentorship can happen between an adult and a young person, but how impactful and effective is it going to be? When we look at the youth, especially young Black men, their influences are often people who are not as positive but are close to their age, rappers and drug dealers, otherwise known as “street pharmacists”. We started to coordinate the intergenerational near-to-peer model, where we started with training high school students to be community leaders and to have a positive influence over younger kids, or, put simply, positive peer pressure.”
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Mentoring Mentors Reflection Walk with High School Students
Under a new identity as Mentoring Mentors, Mayo’s program adopted a new focus, training young men around personal, emotional, and social development. It exposes youth to positive opportunities, pointing them towards leadership development and successful academic careers. In 2019, Mentoring Mentors opened the program to include young women, after Mayo saw that both young black men and women were facing a lot of the same problems, such as single-parent families and poverty. However, there were also differences. While many of the young women were doing better academically than their male peers, there was also higher incidence of depression and suicidal ideation. Now with programs catering to both young men and women, Mentoring Mentors also includes lessons on emotionally healthy romantic relationships and preventing gender violence.
According to Mayo, being able to gain additional funding will help Mentoring Mentors continue and expand its operations beyond the Baltimore Metro Area. Moving forward, Mentoring Mentors also wants to demonstrate nationally its strategy to improve the lives of young people across America through the near-to-peer model. The organization is looking to partner with industry leaders on the social determinants of health, such as in the therapeutic and psychology fields. In partnership with Morgan State University, Mentoring Mentors plans to create a national database to track the progress of young people that go through the organization’s programs. Partnering with universities will also give Mentoring Mentors access to research programs to conduct longitudinal research that can show the effectiveness of what it does.
“We want to continue and expand on our work, because it's something that could work across this country. But, it takes financial resources,” he says. “We want to change the narrative and see a better city, a better state, a better country, and a better world. We also want people to ask why our group is able to send all our kids to college, why our young men are excelling in their studies, and why none of our kids are getting arrested or caught up in gang violence. Lastly, my mission is to inspire young people to chase after their dreams and live up to their full potential by surpassing me.”
Media contact:
Name: Alphonso Mayo
Email: [email protected]
There is no offer to sell, no solicitation of an offer to buy, and no recommendation of any security or any other product or service in this article. Moreover, nothing contained in this should be construed as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment or security, or to engage in any investment strategy or transaction. It is your responsibility to determine whether any investment, investment strategy, security, or related transaction is appropriate for you based on your investment objectives, financial circumstances, and risk tolerance. Consult your business advisor, attorney, or tax advisor regarding your specific business, legal, or tax situation.
