Celebrating Black Success Many of us who have gone through the traditional educational system in the United States have been conditioned to think about celebrating black success within the confines of 28 days, aka February: Black History Month. And if we’re honest with ourselves, the black success we celebrated usually looked the same year after year after year. I’ll speak for myself here: growing up, Black History Month was always a month full of learning about slavery, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King Jr. I can’t say I remember too much else. It wasn’t until college that I was even presented with information about black history that was different.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing the schools I attended or Black History Month. Instead, I hope to get you thinking introspectively about your own lived experience and the systems with which you interact each and every day. How is black success celebrated, if at all? When is it celebrated? Who is being celebrated? With whom are you celebrating? As a member of the BEST Kids family, I’m not worried about you knowing that black lives matter, but are you living that out? Are you modeling that to your mentee? Maryland MENTOR’s Sadiq Ali published a piece at the beginning of the month with a list of 28 ways to celebrate black history with your mentee. Mentors, I encourage you to check it out and implement these practices into your everyday interactions with your mentee. They are all really fun ideas, in my opinion! To all BEST Kids supporters, I leave you with this plea: make good trouble (as Former Congressman John Lewis is coined for saying). You have a responsibility to the kids in our program (and all kids) to make individual changes that, collectively, change this world, this country, for the better. Talk about the success of black people, not just when it’s not Black History Month or the trendy thing to do. And ESPECIALLY when no one else is. Change starts now and it starts with you.
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January is National Mentoring Month - a very important time at BEST Kids! We take this time to recognize all our dedicated volunteer mentors for the countless hours they spend simply being there for their mentees. Though 'simply being there' doesn't sound like a tall order at first, it is safe to say that a mentor's responsibilities are anything but simple. A BEST Kids mentor is charged with walking alongside their mentee through the mountains and the valleys of life. As with the rest of our world, there were many valleys over this past year for our mentees AND our mentors. In spite of all that was thrown at our country this year, our mentors continued to show up for their mentee. Whether it was the mentor who learned how to engage their mentee virtually or the mentor who attended our Solidarity Sessions to learn more about what it means to be anti-racist, our mentors showed nothing short of dedication, care, and love to their mentees. During this National Mentoring Month, we hope our mentors feel extra love and appreciation from their BEST Kids family!
In a world that has been feeling more divided than ever, and that has forced us to distance in order to preserve our physical safety, finding ways to remain connected has become even more critically important to maintaining our overall health. This connectedness comes in the form of being able to stay connected to the internet and other basic needs during times of extreme economic hardship for so many. We are proud to say that through emergency funding from local foundations, we were able to provide $20,000 of basic needs support to help our mentees and their families to weather these tough times through assistance with tablets, groceries, rent, utilities, and educational support.
This connectedness also comes in the form of feeling the power of relationship with a mentor and with peers who can relate to some of the hardships that have only been intensified this past year. We’ve maintained these critical relationships virtually and safely in person this past year that has opened up a whole new world of mentor and mentee engagement with one another including countless tik tok videos, lots of outdoor time, and a variety of online games. We’ve also continued to offer our Peer Group activities monthly including yoga workshops, virtual cooking classes, art projects and so much more. Our mentors have been able to deliver summer and winter care packages to their mentees filled with activities, books, snacks and more to help brighten the day for each youth in our program. None of this would have been possible without the strong support of the community we are connected to. Despite all of these positive outcomes, this year has undoubtedly been very stressful for us all. We’ve had to push through significant funding losses, staffing reductions, the trauma of continued racial injustices, and what feels like constant pivoting in order to keep things going strong. One of the things that has kept us going through it all is hope. There’s a quote about hope from one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” It has been hope that has helped us to continue to innovate and better respond to the changing needs of the youth and families we serve. It has been hope that has had us rethink the way we do thinks and plan ahead strategically for a brighter and more impactful future. And it has been hope that has helped us connect more deeply with those in our BEST Kids family and in our community. As we close out this memorable year, I urge you all to keep hope forefront and a motivation to continue to care for ourselves and also for others in all we do. We thank you for being part of our family of support and we appreciate how you’ve continued to generate hope for us all over the years, but especially this past year. I wish you all a wonderful and safe holiday season and let’s all hope that next year will bring us even more to celebrate together. We are traditionally accustomed to taking a moment around this time in the year to express thankfulness and gratefulness for what we have. People express this through a myriad of ways, including feasting or gathering with loved ones. But it is safe to say that this year is quite different. Being able to celebrate this time of year with loved ones may not be an option for many of us. I don't think anyone has experienced a Thanksgiving or holiday season quite like this one. I, for one, am simply grateful that I have made it this far into the year - a year which has forced me to take stock of those things that I still have that are important to me and keep me going. Our youth and families teach us this. Our young people, who are eagerly awaiting permanency within the foster care system, demonstrate resilience and endurance every day. They know too well what it feels like to experience setback after setback and find themselves still standing and moving forward with those things which are most important.
We at BEST Kids have had to learn a little bit about that this year. From navigating a global pandemic, to racial injustices that directly affect our young people, to large funding cuts, we have definitely had our share of adversity this year. But even in the midst of it all, we find ourselves grateful for those things that are most important, especially our community of amazing mentors. We have seen our mentors continually step up and support whether that be learning how to video chat so they can keep up virtually with their mentee, asking the hard questions about race during our Solidarity Sessions this summer, or soliciting donations among their networks when BEST Kids expressed the urgent need for funding. We've had such a hard year but we are so grateful at the same time! I am so proud of our staff, our community, our partners, our supporters, and our youth for making Art of the Matter: The REMIX a huge success, in my opinion. For this to have been our organization’s first time ever having a virtual benefit concert, I must say it was a true pleasure to see everyone come together to make it happen. What I value most about the process and experience is the community partnership, community engagement, and community empowerment it took to bring what once was simply an idea into full fruition. It goes to show the impact that people coming together in support of a cause as important as empowering youth in foster care through one on one mentoring can make.
To date we have raised $49,214.74 towards our goal, which speaks volumes when a pandemic and world challenges are currently happening. It is amazing what community can do when we come together. We had just over 13,000 views of the show that we are aware of, and that is only including the days the show actually aired. This does not include the views that have continued to happen since the completion of the show because it is still viewable on our website. Spreading awareness of our cause was one of our main goals and I believe we did indeed achieve that in a major way. I can’t exclude the fact that being a part of the show and wearing multiple hats as co-host with KyleOnTheMic, performer as Dan’Talisha Nicole, and Development Director of BEST Kids was an absolute blast! It was hard work for sure, but was well worth it all. Ultimately, I must say I am well pleased with how everything turned out and just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to every single person involved no matter what capacity. We could not have done this without YOU! And lastly, I just want to say that it is not too late to donate and continue to spread the word about the event and our cause here at BEST Kids. We work extremely hard to continue to support our youth efficiently and effectively to the best of our ability. Please feel free to encourage people to watch the show by visiting bestkids.org/live. Again, THANK YOU! |
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