Honors night 2021
Greetings,
I am Darryl L. Johnson, Executive Director, Mentor2Youth. We invite you to celebrate 10 years with us at our annual Honor’s Night, November 13 at 6:30 pm. Join us in continuing to Bridge the Gap through youth empowerment, family involvement, and community collaboration.
The current school-to-prison pipeline for BIPOC youth is morally and ethically unacceptable and the solutions that seek to simply interrupt the pipeline do not sufficiently address the problem. There must be an investment in intentionally building new pathways that allow our youth to uniquely thrive. The way we see it, the communities we serve are playing checkers in the game of life while other, more privileged individuals are playing chess. We and our volunteers are here to help BIPOC youth and their families assemble their own chess pieces and show them how to use them. Hence, the Menty (Mentee) Awards celebrating the character represented by each chess piece.
The Mentys are 13 awards given to community members representing characters we are developing in our young people and that represent our mission at Mentor2Youth. Cultivating Purpose through service: The whole child, the whole community; lifelong learners. We are currently in the process of beginning the Young Men of Purpose collaboration at Ypsi Middle School, where we will deliver our Young Kings programming to approximately 90 boys. But, the young men in our community are not the only youth in need of our support. Our goal this year is to match the $75,000 by November 30 in order to activate our Young Queens program so that we could serve 90 girls, also at Ypsilanti Middle School in January.
Please consider coming alongside us to provide this very needed service. We offer two ways to get involved: A peer-to-peer crowdfunding campaign, or a sponsorship package. A common phrase for us is “No Money, No Mission”.
Let me speak first about our peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. This level of involvement is about creating teams that are invested in bridging the gap. The goal is to get as many people in your network to give a minimum of $10 to your team. Through these villages, it is our goal to get at least halfway towards our $75,000 goal. If you would consider creating a team click the link and get your team out the gate. Or if you are looking to support a team, try the giving to a team link and get involved there.
The second method to give through us is to become a sponsor of one of our three events this year. We have 3 events that we hope will be attractive as a sponsorship event (click here to learn more). The Honor’s Night, this fall, the Bowling event this February, and the Golf Outing this summer. Remember, “No Money, No Mission”.
In closing, be a bridge-builder with us! There is no time like the present to change the life and direction of a young person from a nightmare to a dream. Our work dismantles the school-to-prison pipeline by guiding the youth in our communities towards better, more helpful skills and strategies to thrive in their specific goals and life. In doing so, we will foster thriving communities and neighborhoods wherein BIPOC children can easily imagine different possibilities for their future and provide meaningful help and support to others once they achieve their goals.
Pamoja Tutashinda (Together We Will Win), Warm regards,
Darryl L. Johnson
Darryl L. Johnson, Executive Director
darryl@mentor2youth.org | 734-972-0902
