Save Our Youth

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Impact Statement

SOY is proud of the following accomplishments:
• SOY supports 450 youth annually—321 ongoing one-on-one mentoring matches, 35 students in College Scholars, 70 youth weekly through our community partnerships and their small group meetings. Youth who are waiting for a mentor are able to participate in group mentoring activities where they can discuss peer issues, sexual abstinence, participate in team building exercises and more importantly, relate to adults who serve as healthy role models.
• SOY’s average range of mentoring match lasts for 3 ½-5 years; while the national average is only 9 months (http://www.mentoring.org/poll.).
• SOY mentors spend more than 45,000 volunteer hours with their assigned youth, averaging 3 hours per week
• SOY has a 90% high school graduation rate for mentees in the program, in contrast to the 50-70% drop in the neighborhoods where we serve.

Background Statement

Save Our Youth started in 1993 during a time when violence among urban teens was pervading the country. Save Our Youth Mentoring was born when 100+ agencies and urban churches in the Denver area came together to address the prevailing problem of struggling youth who were disconnected from caring adults. Such disconnection from adults who could guide and encourage youth seemed to be at the root of the violence and other social problems.

With much thoughtful research and planning, it was decided that well-supervised mentor relationships were the best solution to the kind of help the youth were requesting. In 1995, Save Our Youth was established to provide one-on-one mentoring to at-risk youth in Denver. Save Our Youth recruited adults who would guide and grow urban youth toward educational, emotional and spiritual health. Struggling at- risk youth were crying out for wisdom and help for a better future. Like many individuals living in poverty, at risk youth display openness to encouragement and answers. For most of our African-American and Latino youth, it was not always as easy as this but they displayed a desire to improve their lives.

Executive Director Statement

Many kids have passed through Save Our Youth since we opened our doors. Our staff works hard to figure out how to best recruit, train and guide adults who sacrifice their time to become mentors. We are driven to find these valuable national treasures we call mentors and to engage them long term for the most important investment in America today: developing healthy young lives that will grow strong families who will in turn yield a productive next generation.

People always ask me if I have grown tired of my work in mentoring. I still get energized about mentoring because it is the foundation of any great world civilization. Connecting young lives with adults who will guide them toward healthy choices regarding education, employment, relationships, morality, spiritual development, caring for others, including the poor and underprivileged…is there anything more important?

Teaching young kids productive life skills is paramount in any great civilization and such skills cannot be transferred through video games, television or books. Great civilizations are produced and transferred when warm human lives teach the young about what is important. Connecting the young to the wisdom of the old is carried on in the nondescript classroom of every life activities and experiences. Even hanging out together for no particular purpose is what mentoring is in its basic form.

As you review and learn more about SOY, I trust you will be encouraged by the growth we have seen the past 12 months. I am proud of our Board of Directors, our staff and our accomplishments. We saw nearly 500 youth mentored by Save Our Youth volunteers last year averaging at least 2.5-5 years in relationship when the national average is only 9 months!

Thank you so much for your investment in the most important work today. We believe in growing young lives toward to success. When kids are loved and guided in a mentoring relationship by adult volunteers who care for