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Ms. Straughter's
Mentees

MISSION

Ms. Straughter’s Mentees mission is to provide youth in Philadelphia and across the world with educational, social, emotional, and financial programming resources that go beyond the resources provided in the school setting. Our ultimate goal is to put our youth on a path to realizing their place in the community and their potential to be agents of change countering the effects of violence, strife and the abandonment that plagues most inner city youths.

Our Dream

In the near future we plan to have a brick and mortar location for Ms. Straughter's Mentees program and a vehicle. The brick and mortar location would be known as the Summer House because it would provide a space for our daily/weekly sessions, but would also serve as a safe haven for our Mentees during the summer season.

The Summer Home will be a space The Mentees can call home. A comfy environment that resembles the warmth of a Grandparents home. It will include several bedrooms, living room space for discussions, a dining space for dinner, a full kitchen, library/ study room, prayer room, music studio, game room, fenced backyard with an activity area for us to host a Mentee’s Giving Dinner, Summer Jam BBQ and more. The basement will include a donor wall to honor those who made a financial donation. This will be a historical place for many generations to come! 

Program Services

+One on One and Group Discussion Sessions

+Academic Tutoring

+Small and Whole Group Trips

+College Tours

+Program Focus: Academic health, Emotional health, Decorum/Deportment

+Special Annual Events (MenteesGiving Dinner, Holiday Gift Drop, Summer Jam, Spring Break (College Tour), Winter Day Trip, Annual Photoshoot, Mentee Award and Scholarship Gala

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Ms. Straughter's Why

It was time for school.  I was only four years old but I understood what Kindergarten was - my parents, the primary guiding lights in my life thus far, would be leaving me with a stranger everyday so I could learn new things.  

 

As time passed, I stopped thinking of my teacher, Ms. Anderson, as a stranger.  She smelled like chocolate M&M’s and had a warm disposition that lit up her classroom. She became one of the suns around which my earth orbited and was a soft place to land during the school day. 

 

School work was challenging, but Ms. Anderson never let me drown under the weight of these challenges. Instead, she made me feel happy, supported and encouraged. I felt like my thoughts and feelings were in great hands; and under her my self-confidence grew. By the end of the school year, I started to believe there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.

 

Academics never came easy for me. I had to work hard and throughout my academic career I learned the importance of not only asking for help, but also giving it. My need to offer a helping hand to others extended beyond academics. In addition to extracurricular volunteering during middle and high school, I was also known for giving my peers assistance.

 

After college I focused my passion for service by working at a women and children’s intervention facility in West Philadelphia. I eventually moved on to become a Career Specialist to assist youth with obtaining higher education and charting a career. Finally, I accepted a teaching position in the Philadelphia Public School system. 

 

After three years as a public school teacher, I have accepted that the modern school system is focused on mandates, curriculum, standardized tests and grades. Art, music and home economics programs have mostly fallen by the wayside and teachers are often left with little to no time to connect with their students on a real human level. This focus is both ineffective and detrimental to our youth.

 

Though I longed to be able to be a ‘Ms. Anderson’ I didn’t have the time or support to make this a reality.  I gave my students as much ‘extra’ as I possibly could, but I knew it was nowhere near the ‘extra’ Ms. Anderson provided. And then a pandemic happened. 

 

Like everyone in the world, I started to re-evaluate my position and my ability to be more for my students. I wanted to be a ‘Ms. Anderson’ to my students. I wanted to be a teacher and a mentor. I wanted to show youth that there was more to life than the bits and bobs they were getting through our current school system. I wanted them to learn about deportment and the social graces. I wanted to provide them with an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of their own culture and expand their view to include cultures around the world. I wanted them to believe that I was a safe place for them to land and that I would listen.  I wanted to bolster their self-confidence and make them feel capable of facing the challenges of the real world.

 

And I realized that the onus was upon me to make this happen.  Ms. Straughter’s Mentees was born.

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TESTIMONIALS

WHAT OUR MENTEES, PARENTS, AND SPONSORS SAY!

VIDEO COMING SOON!

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