Kevin

This week we finally made our decision on which group that we will give our $10,000 grant. And the winner is (drum roll please) Mentoring to Manhood! Mentoring to Manhood was a personal favorite of mine since reading their application, so I am really happy with the results. Mentoring to Manhood is an after school program whose goal is to help young men develop academic skills, character, positive communication skills, and to provide them with the resources and tools to maximize their potential. Throughout all of deliberation, Mentoring to Manhood was the strongest on all fronts. Its mission statement was very similar to our own and they met all of our selection criteria. Most people in the class would argue against one organization because of certain flaws or problems within the organization that caused concern. There weren’t any such problems with Mentoring to Manhood. I believe that just about everyone in the class had Mentoring to Manhood in their top three favorite organizations. As we eliminated and deliberated on the various organizations, Mentoring to Manhood always prevailed. From the application to the phone interview to the site-visit to the reference, Mentoring to Manhood had the strongest credentials out of all of the groups. The organization has very admirable goals and they hope to effect a positive change in the community. With our $10,000 grant, Mentoring to Manhood will fund a full time staff member and help fund a tutoring program. Currently, Mentoring to Manhood works primarily on the weekends because most of the workers are volunteers. By hiring a full time member, their goal is to have programs during the weekdays too. Overall, I am very happy with the decision the class has made and I found the work that I did in this class to be very rewarding.