A Difficult Day

Yesterday was a difficult day. I spent the day at the Allegheny County courthouse with three boys from my neighborhood in Homewood. I know all three boys pretty well, as they have each visited my house a lot since I moved to Homewood. I've shared many meals with them, and we've talked and dreamed about their futures. We've talked a lot about making good choices and avoiding the temptations for young men in Homewood. I have tried for nearly two years to find LAMP mentors for each of them, but that effort has been unsuccessful. So, even though I've been able to speak into their lives a little bit, they have not had a consistent mentor of their own to meet with them regularly. And that's why yesterday was so difficult. I watched as my young friends were convicted of felonies and sent to the local youth detention center. I did my best to support them and their families, but what could I possibly say? It hurts. It stinks. They have so much life ahead of them, and they are starting their young lives out with criminal records.

I am not dismissing what they did to get them into that situation. Their actions were wrong. Period. And they hurt someone from their neighborhood pretty bad. I feel so bad about that, and they are receiving their consequences. Still, I feel bad that they did not have mentors. They waited, and nobody came. Mentoring is not a guarantee that kids will not get into any trouble, but my experience (and a great deal of data on mentoring) supports the fact that high risk youth with mentors get into much less trouble than high risk youth who lack positive adult role models in their lives. I am not simply speaking about a bunch of numbers on somebody's fact sheet about at-risk youth. I know a lot of kids in Homewood, and the kids that have LAMP mentors are really doing well in school, with their families, and in their lives in general. I could tell stories all day about the differences I have seen in my own mentees. That's what made my day yesterday so heartbreaking. Could a mentor have disrupted the destructive path my young neighbors took? I guess I'll never know.

There are around 15 million at-risk children in the United States who want or need a mentor. Homewood is just one of many neighborhoods who could really benefit from more mentors. Mentoring really does work! My hope is that my neighbors will be released from their youth detention facilities before they are aged out of the LAMP program at the end of this year so that they can be matched with a mentor. And my hope is that at-risk youth living all over the world will have the opportunity to see what it's like to have a mentor invest in them in a positive relationship over time. My particular passion within that context is to see churches invest in their cities by mentoring vulnerable young people, whether it's in their local schools, in their houses, in the streets, or in the churches. Where ever mentoring happens, it can be effective. Let's work together to find mentors for all children in need... in Homewood, across the nation, and around the world!