MENTORING YOUTH. CHANGING FUTURES.
Every child is born with great potential. But faced with adversity, the trajectory of life finds a less desirable path. A mentor empowers a child to realize their biggest possible future. To achieve goals once believed out of reach. To ignite their full potential.
135,000 CHILDREN
Oklahoma leads the world in incarceration rates, which means that 15% of our kids experience parental incarceration at some point in their childhood. That is more than three children in each Oklahoma classroom. Those children are 70% more likely to end up incarcerated themselves.
30 PERCENT
Nearly one-third of Oklahoma children have incurred two or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) ranking Oklahoma number one among other states. In adulthood, they are more likely to suffer from alcoholism, abuse drugs, suffer from depression and not graduate high school.
1 in 3
Right now, there are 9 million kids in our country growing up without a mentor. That means that 1 out of every 3 young people do not have the support of a positive caring adult outside of their family. They lack the support many of us relied on.
But it is not too late to help us change this statistic.
