Create Learning Group to Understand Goals of this Blog

Below is a concept map that I created many years ago to help guide people through all of the information I've shared since forming the Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) in Chicago in 1993. 

You can open it at this link.  In the upper left corner I share a link to a video created in 2015 by an intern from South Korea, to guide people through this concept map. 

The goal is to help people in every place with concentrations of persistent, on-going, poverty create and sustain mentor-rich youth programs that help kids through school and into adult lives. I led one of these from 1975 to 2011 and am still connected to many who were part of these programs in the past. 

The graphic below visualizes this long-term goal and shows teens who were part of the program in the 1990s who I'm still connected with more than 20 years later. 

We created the T/MC in 1993 to collect and share ideas and draw greater attention to all volunteer-based tutor/mentor programs in Chicago (including our own), to help each program get the ideas and resources needed to constantly improve how they impact the lives of kids and volunteers who become part of their programs.  

I included both of these graphics in this article. 

I studied history in college, and grew up in a church-attending family.  I'm familiar with how Jesus recruited a few Disciples, and started teaching them his message.  He died too soon for much to be taught, but inspired these Disciples to spend the rest of their lives understanding his message and sharing it with others.

I'm also familiar with how other faith groups have a core history that inspires millions of others. 

I'm now 77 and don't know how many years I have left.  What I do know is that I've probably put a whole lot more information in the public space than what Jesus was able to do in his short life.

So I invite former students and volunteers of the programs I led, and of other long-term tutor/mentor programs, to become Disciples, now, and in future years.

Go through the archives I share on the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC website and build and share your own understanding of this information.  Share it widely and help places throughout the world build information-intermediaries like the T/MC that not only collect and share information, but lead a constant mobilization of volunteers and donors who will help well-organized, K-12 tutor/mentor programs grow in every high poverty neighborhood throughout the USA and beyond. 

This is not a new invitation. Read this 2001 article in the Ecumenical Child Care Network newsletter. 

Be patient. Be persistent.  You can't learn this all in one day, or even one year.  People in faith communities spend their entire lives reading and reflecting on printed scripture.  People in universities spend four to eight years in obtaining degrees.

It took around 350 years after the death of Christ before Rome officially recognized the Christian religion.  I hope it does not take that long to build T/MC type intermediaries in every place with concentrations of poverty, who will do the work needed to mobilize others and build systems that help kids through school, while at the same time destroying the systems that have kept people in poverty.

As long as I draw breath I'll try to help you in this process.  

This page shows where you can connect with me on social media.    This page shows where you can make a contribution to help fund my work and the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC.

Thanks for reading!  Have a great week!