Willie and Lehzan
I’m incredibly humbled by the number of you who have helped us move into the top 50 in the CHASE Bank grant contest currently running on Facebook. Non-profits in the top 200 get 20k from CHASE, and things could certainly change, but we are placing well going into the last week.
I called Dr. Sowers, our The Mentoring Project’s President and asked what the chances were that we could win the whole thing, giving us 250k (an entire years budget) and he said it wasn’t likely. That said, though, if we moved into the top ten, I think it’s safe to say we’d launch a major campaign to try to move into the top spot. Honestly, it wouldn’t take much. The current leader only has about 12k votes, and nearly 100k people come to this blog alone every month.
At The Mentoring Project, we’d use the money to start mentoring programs at the 600 churches on our current waiting list. That means literally thousands of fatherless boys being provided with a friend who would encourage them through their formative years.
When I was a kid, I was breaking into a few houses, just getting into trouble a bit, and a guy at the church took me under his wing and changed my life. He gave me a little guest article in the youth group newsletter and the job of “writer” took immediately. Those were formative years for me. At The Mentoring Project, that’s precisely what we do. One of our kids, Lehzan hardly talked when we first provided him a mentor, and just this year he and Willie (his mentor) were invited to the White House. You think his life was changed? It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which he won’t succeed. He came home and the whole school shut down to hear his story of meeting the President.
I’ll let you guys take the lead regarding the Facebook contest. I’m humbled enough by your support already. If you think we can do it, I’m willing to close down shop for the next week and just try to lobby for votes. If you’ve not voted yet, you can vote here.
I’d also like to thank the folks at Invisible Children for helping us out. You can’t possibly know how humbled I am by their support. Such a huge organization, and a powerhouse when it comes to stuff like this. We are small fish in a big ocean on this one.
Thanks so much, everybody!
Sincerely,
Don
