Who We Are
Mentor Pride is a program developed and funded by the South Alabama Mentoring Coalition to create awareness regarding the need for more male participants in mentoring programs in the South Alabama region. The ultimate goal is to generate more participation among male community members in our partners’ vital and productive programs that benefit our youth population.
Mentor Pride’s Mission
How Mentor Pride came about
- In the spring of 2012, the Community Foundation of South Alabama launched an initiative now referred to MORE- Males Overcoming and Reaching Excellence. Under this initiative, an application for funding to create our community’s first Mentoring Coalition was submitted.
- In the fall of 2012, the founding coalition of Mentor Pride was chosen as a grant recipient.
- Once chosen, the largest, local organizations who offer mentoring programs were invited to come together to form what is now the South Alabama Mentoring Coalition.
- In January 2013, the Coalition received a proclamation from the Mayor from the City of Mobile.
- In the spring of 2013, the Coalition hosted a community forum focused on mentoring.
- As a result, the Coalition was able to narrow down areas of relevance and the ways in which the Coalition could help increase community awareness of the mentoring programs that currently exist, the need for more mentors, especially men, and ways to uplift all mentoring organizations to ensure the highest standards in program safety and quality are being achieved across our community so that the children participating on the various mentoring programs are tangibly better, forever.
- In the summer of 2013, the Coalition began creating a public awareness campaign to help increase the community’s awareness of current mentoring programs and the tremendous need for male mentors across all mentoring programs. Mentor Pride was born from this campaign.
- In January 2014, www.mentorpride.org launched along with a supporting presence on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter.