BLUEPRINT FOR A PROMISE NEIGHBORHOOD

What do we look for when we're considering building a New Promise Neighborhood?

In July we shared some background on how the opportunity to establish a new Promise Neighborhood in Maryvale opened up and our progress to that date. This month, we want to take a deeper dive into the conditions and characteristics that make an area a good candidate to become a Promise Neighborhood, and how God works to bring it all together.

You might expect that some of the criteria used to determine Promise Neighborhood potential would include high rates of crime and poverty, and underperforming schools, and you would be correct. But there's so much more to the equation than that.

We also look for neighborhood identity - a clear sense of cohesion and connection to the neighborhood is a vitally important piece of the puzzle. When the people living in the neighborhood know each other and share a sense of belonging to their community, God can open the doors to three elements that are crucial to the success of a new Promise Neighborhood.

One of these criteria is for the neighborhood to have an Anchor Church, a fellowship of believers who have the heart to reach the community for Christ. Anchor Churches like Valley Presbyterian Church (Paiute) and Scottsdale Bible Church (Palomino) provide tremendous resources that address the material needs of the people living in the Promise Neighborhoods and create a sense of community connection through outreach events and other acts of compassion and generosity.

Another criterion is that the neighborhood must have an Anchor School that is supportive of the mission of MentorKids and willing to work cooperatively for the good of their students. Anchor Schools provide access to students and families who can benefit from the services we offer, even going as far as arranging bus schedules so they can drop students off at our afterschool programs.

The third criterion that we look for is a bit more ambiguous and might best be described as Neighborhood Buy-In. Neighborhood Buy-In is indicated when families are spreading the word about MentorKids, when kids are enjoying the programs and bringing their friends, and when churches, businesses, and community partners are joining forces to create and strengthen connections between MentorKids and the neighborhood.

After evaluating demographic data to determine the level of need in a given community, we assess these three important criteria by launching a short-term pilot program designed to introduce MentorKids to the neighborhood. The level of collaboration necessary to launch a pilot program allows us to determine the compatibility of our potential partners and the reaction of the neighborhood families to our programming. But that isn't where the evaluation stops.

The most important work happens in the quiet places of prayer as our leadership and Board seek God's will for this ministry and rely on His Holy Spirit to lead us where He wants us to go next. And when we see His leading in such clear ways as we did in Maryvale this year, we can move forward in the confidence that He is leading and the vision we see is His.

What has happened this summer in Maryvale is a good example of how this process works. Quite unexpectedly, God provided an Anchor Church in Maryvale (Unidos en una Visión Church), an Anchor School (Heatherbrae Elementary, next door to Unidos Church), and a tremendous outpouring of support from the neighborhood.

So what's next in Maryvale?

Register now for our

Morning of Hope Annual Breakfast Event

on October 21 to find out!

The Survey Says: Afterschool programs are crucial to a child’s education

The United States is facing an education crisis in afterschool education. Recent polling suggests that over 90% of parents believe that afterschool programs are crucial for their child’s education. Unfortunately, for most of these parents, high-quality traditional afterschool programs are often out of reach. A recent study published by The Afterschool Alliance found that more than 24.6 million children in the United States alone cannot join after-school programs.

Understanding the Problem

Among the reasons listed by parents for not sending their children to afterschool programs, there are four that genuinely highlight the difficulty that parents face when trying to give their kids a quality education:

Cost: Most parents cited the cost of afterschool programs as the most significant barrier to enrolling their child in a program. With some courses costing $3,600 per year, the cost is simply impossible to manage for many families.

Availability: More than 42% of polled parents reported that afterschool programs were unavailable in their community, indicating that nearly half of the children in this country cannot attend quality afterschool programs because there aren’t enough of them to meet their needs.

Transportation: Parents also indicated that transportation played a role in their inability to send their kids to afterschool programs. With some parents working one or two jobs to pay the bills, there isn’t time to get their kids out of the house. For other families who live in larger cities, parents worry about safe transport for their children because they don’t have access to a car.

Quality: Quality is another factor holding parents back from putting their children into more “affordable” afterschool programs. Most afterschool programs are more daycare than education, with kids just playing around for a few hours instead of learning something truly beneficial.

How MentorKids Provides Answers

Cost: MentorKids programs are FREE to our kids and families, thanks to the generosity of our partners, supporters ad friends.

Availability: Our vision is to create a network of Promise Neighborhoods across the Phoenix metro area, and then expand across Arizona and around the country. We are in the process of opening our fourth Promise Neighborhood in the heart of Maryvale.

Transportation: We work with schools to provide free transportation from our local schools to our afterschool programs whenever possible. And because we focus on serving a distinct neighborhood our programs are more convenient for our parents to access.

Quality: This is an area where MentorKids really stands out in comparison with other afterschool programs. Our staff and volunteers offer homework help, one-on-one and small group tutoring, and supplemental literacy and STEAM activities to help instill a love of learning and confidence in our kids’ abilities to excel in school. We focus on each of our three pillars, Academic Excellence, Spiritual Growth, and Leadership Development every day, and offer a continuum of age-appropriate support, coaching and tutoring from K-12th grades.

“When I was a younger kid, the whole park would be full…”

"When I was a younger kid... the whole park would be full - nothing empty. But it's kind of gotten a bit empty, so it's nice to see it being used."

As part of our 25th Anniversary Celebrations, we invited our Paiute iLEADers (south Scottsdale) to tell us what they would do to bless their Promise Neighborhood with a budget of $250. After reviewing the plans from our Paiute iLEADers, the committee selected Edgar’s project. Edgar helped put together a BBQ event for the families in the Paiute Promise Neighborhood complete with food, smoothies, games, and lots of fun...just like “back in the day.”   

Edgar, currently a junior in high school and an iLEADer at MentorKids, has been involved in MentorKids since middle school and he has three younger siblings participating as well. As an iLEADer, he now has a part-time job tutoring and mentoring the younger kids in his neighborhood. This summer he also worked part-time on the maintenance crew at Valley Presbyterian Church, a long-term church partner of ours. This project gave him the opportunity to bless his neighborhood while also putting into practice his leadership skills. 

As you will see in the short video above, this was a fun experience that brought our volunteers, friends, families, and kids together.

Here are three ways YOU can join our iLEADers as they help us celebrate our 25th Anniversary.     

First, financially sponsor a “Celebration Project” for $250. These funds will be used to carry out another project designed and led by our iLEADers: sponsor one, two, or 3 projects! The more funds donated, the more projects we’ll have!! So far, we’ve had three projects funded by YOU!!   

Second, be a part of a Celebration Project Selection Committee that will read through the project proposals written by our iLEADers and then select the next project (or projects). Our next Selection Committee will meet on September 27th, at 6:00 pm via Zoom.

Third, participate in our next Celebration Project organized by Bruno, another Paiute iLEADer. Bruno is organizing a Prayer Walk on October 14th in the Paiute Promise Neighborhood. 

Thank you for supporting our iLEADers as they help grow the next generation of leaders in their neighborhoods!!! And thank you for helping us celebrate 25 years of changing the world, one life at a time.  

Sweat and sawdust and backpacks?

Many thanks to Ironwood Mills for collecting backpacks for our kids and getting MentorKids a little press coverage. Check out this clip from Channel 3 News:

I will love him forever

I’ve seen it a thousand times, but it still touches my heart in a special way and brings me to tears every time. A volunteer comes to MentorKids with a desire to serve...to make a difference...to give back. But something magical happens along the way. “Service” turns into Love.   

Peter was matched with Jorge as a one-on-one mentor in our Palomino Promise Neighborhood about 6 years ago. At age 13, Jorge was going through life challenges. Peter was looking to help. As they grew together, a special bond was formed. As is true with all good friendships, their bond transcended age, culture, language, and background. Over time, two lives that were initially joined through a “program” have been bound together through friendship and love.   

This year MentorKids turns 25 years old. As with any milestone, it’s a time to reflect upon where we’ve been and where we’re going. We were founded as a one-on-one mentoring organization and, as demonstrated through Peter and Jorge’s story, we saw tremendous impact in those relationships. We have now adopted a new model as we seek to build young leaders who build young leaders in our Promise Neighborhoods.   

But who are we at our core? 

What will define us as an organization? 

What motivates us to keep going? 

What does God expect of us?   

When asked a similar question, Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”   

As we grow and mature as an organization, I pray that we follow the path of Peter and Jorge, and of Bill and Kaw Ku (featured in our April newsletter), and so many others: May we move from service to love. 

In the midst of a culture so full of division, so eager to point the finger, and so quick to demand from others, may we be people who love. Love has the power to unite. Love has the power to change our hearts. And only love can redeem our brokenness, restore our relationships, and fill us with hope for tomorrow.   

We can’t do this on our own...nor do we want to. We invite you to continue serving and, more importantly, loving with us as we work together to change the world, one life, one family, and one neighborhood at a time for the next 25 years. 

The vision blossoms in Maryvale

God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way.

Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.

~ Oswald Chambers

Our vision for opening our fourth Promise Neighborhood in the Maryvale area has been a long time in the making. And we have seen our time in the valley since the vision was first planted in our hearts, which only makes the story of how God has worked to make this vision reality all the more remarkable.

We began laying the groundwork for opening a fourth Promise Neighborhood in 2020 - yes, during the pandemic because the Covid shutdowns emphasized just how essential the services we provide to families are. And staying operational during Covid meant reviewing policies and procedures so that we could continue ministering to our families. This led to a multi-year project: creating a replicable program model, or as Aaron calls it, "MentorKids In A Box."

Alignment was the name of the game throughout 2020-2021 and our leadership team embarked on the gargantuan journey of reviewing and refining policies, creating procedures that are consistent across all our Promise Neighborhoods, reviewing and adopting curriculum, and documenting it all so that we would be ready to launch our next Promise Neighborhood as soon as God opened that door. We thought that time would be 2022.

However, as 2022 dawned each of our Promise Neighborhoods was facing unique problems that needed to be addressed - problems like lack of space to house or grow our programs, housing market changes forcing our families to move out of our neighborhoods, and fractures within communities that impeded the collaboration we need with church and community partners to operate a successful program.

In light of these challenges, Aaron and the Board made the difficult decision to focus our energies this year on shoring up our current Promise Neighborhoods and set the vision of opening a new Promise Neighborhood on the "not yet" shelf. Even in the midst of our disappointment, we felt God's leading and His peace as we created action plans to tackle the challenges we faced in our Neighborhoods and we went to work.

Our Neighborhood Managers took each obstacle in stride and went above and beyond to address their neighborhood's unique challenges while still providing a loving environment to serve kids and their families. This was, in many ways, a year of battling in the valleys in our Promise Neighborhoods, but our people never gave up or pulled back. And while that was happening, God was working in ways we could not see.

"It's like you're down in the trenches slugging it out,

and you look up and you see that God is doing something,

and it's amazing. We serve such an awesome God."

~ Samantha Lingor, Paiute Neighborhood Manager

While we were focusing on the challenges before us, God was laying a vision on the hearts of Pastors Roy and Karla Lainez of Unidos en una Visión Church in the heart of Maryvale - a vision to reach their neighborhood for Christ by bringing in and serving the children of the neighborhood.

"We were praying and God told me clearly that

we needed to reach the kids in our community,

but I didn’t have any idea how to do it. Pastor Obed

knew Aaron and he invited him to come here

and tell us about MentorKids.

I think this is God’s purpose because he

connected us - we call this a divine connection."

~ Pastor Karla Lainez, Unidos en una Visión

From that first meeting, it was clear that we had a shared vision and purpose with the leadership of Unidos en una Visión, so we began the process of putting a pilot MentorKids Summer Enrichment Camp in Maryvale. We saw God provide funding through a grant from the First Baptist Church Foundation and an extremely successful MentorkIds Golf Challenge event. Palomino Neighborhood Manager Nora Espinoza worked closely with Pastor Karla to hire and train staff, and we got to see how well our "MentorKids in a Box" worked in a real-life setting. And the result of all of this hard work can be seen in the faces of the kids who were blessed by the Maryvale Summer Enrichment camp over the past four weeks.