Champions of Hope Mentorship Program

Champions of Hope Mentorship program was founded in 2008 by a visionary, christian woman who saw a need among young children and their families for long-term, christ-centered relationships. The widespread statistics deem every child in south dallas at-risk. The founders of Champions of Hope recognized that south dallas was filled with charities that provided physical necessities and short-term programs, but the community was lacking the deepest need for children - encouraging, long-term relationships with healthy, stable adults.a pilot mentoring program was launched at charles rice elementary in the fall of 2008; 20 mentors were matched with 4th graders. We have continued to match new 4th grade students every year since and support mentors as the relationships grow. A unique characteristic of our organization is that 4 of our staff have moved into south dallas in order to understand the community better and grow deeper in relationships with children/families. This alos allows for better support of mentors, by simply experiencing some of the daily realities of the children being mentored. About 20 different mentors have intentionally moved into the community over the years as well. We matched 15 new mentors during the 2017-2018 school year and Hope to continue matching around 35 new mentors each year. Our second group of students graduated our program in june. The average match length for these graduates was over 3 years with the same mentor. We ended the year with 150 active mentors and 75 committed event and bible study volunteers. With the children being mentored, siblings and friends are always directly impacted, and many other children attend our bible study or events throughout the year. This allows us a conservative estimate of 300 children served last year. The majority of our students live in a single family home or with grandparents, often fully neglected by one or both parents. of the children we mentor, 90% are african-american and 10% are hispanic, and almost equal numbers of boys and girls. The median income in south dallas is $10,400.

This was the third year of our 3-year pilot leadership program for select students in our oldest group (8th-11th graders). We conducted a 2-week leadership intensive program during the summer to help prepare students for life after high school. The program fostered leadership development through group studies on the market place and leadership in the bible, college and univeristy tours, business tours, and service projects.

In 2011 we began a weekly bible study for middle school youth. As staff grew, we expanded the bible study to 4th and 5th graders and high school students. We now serve about 25 children weekly. These are not only children in our mentoring program, but also siblings, friends and neighbors who were not previously impacted by our organization until attending our bible study.