Setting Examples For Phoenix Youth

The 100 Black Men of Phoenix, Inc. has been a partner with the Roosevelt, the Phoenix Union High School Districts and several charter schools primarily in the South Phoenix community for the past 17 years.

During the school year, students are provided with a mentor to encourage and enhance their academic and social development. The 100 organization utilizes the school district or one of our corporate partner’s facilities.

Each year a graduating high school student in the Mentorship Education Network (M.E.N.) Program is awarded the Michael Hale Scholarship sponsored by the Arizona Federal Credit Union.

Intended Purpose

Every month participating youth visit different work places and responsible male adults accompany the participants on these trips. Often times the designated work place is the company and/or profession of the mentor. Our goal is to have youth interact with responsible adult male role models. Hence the motto of the 100 Black Men of America is “What they see is What they’ll be”

In addition to the field trip experience each youth is matched with a responsible adult. This adult mentor provides homework assistance, tutoring and one-on-one counseling. When appropriate, the adult mentor takes his mentee to additional extracurricular activities such as plays, museums, ballgames, etc. These mentors also provide both mentoring and capacity building trainings to parents.

Additional Programs:

• African- American History Challenge Bowl
• Dollar and $ense (Financial Literacy Program)
• Tommie Smith Youth Olympics
• 100 Scholarship Golf Classic
• African- American Achievement Awards
• Outreach Mentoring
• Scholarship Awards

Number of Persons Served

As mentioned above, this program serves over 100 youth monthly. Many of these youth live with single mothers and/or grandparents. They come from areas with high rates of crime, drugs and gangs. Since 1994 the 100 Black Men of Phoenix has served more than 5000 youth.

Geographic Area

Even though we serve the entire Phoenix metropolitan area, most of our youth (mentee’s) we serve are from 7th Avenue on the west, 32nd Street on the east, Salt River bottom to the north and Dobbins Rd to the South. Most of our youth reside in precinct #1161. This is an area that has been historically plagued with gang activity.