Mayor de Blasio Announces the Mentors Matter Initiative for Young People in New York City

September 21, 2020

This new initiative will provide mentors and academic tutoring for thousands of black and brown students as they transition into the new blended learning environment during the COVID-19 crisis

NEW YORK—Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced the Mentors Matters Initiative to provide mentoring, tutoring and social-emotional support to thousands of students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Mentors Matter Initiative is a partnership between the Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) within the Office of the Mayor, One Hundred Black Men and CUNY’s Tutoring Corps.

“One of the things we can do for our young people during this pandemic is provide support and guidance to give them a sense of all of their greatness and their possibilities,” said Mayor de Blasio. “The Mentors Matter Initiative is going to be a difference maker in the lives of a lot of New York City youth by elevating them and giving them hope.”

“The Mentors Matter Initiative will activate our leaders, college students and community-based organizations to support DOE students -- particularly black and brown boys -- during this time of crisis,” said Jordan Stockdale, Executive Director of the Young Men's Initiative. “That's exactly what the Young Men's Initiative is about -- helping our young people reach their potential through funding evidence-based mentoring and leveraging our existing community assets to build a better future.”

Today’s announcement has three different components:

1. One Hundred Black Men and YMI will partner to expand its Junior 100 program to at least 750 black and brown male students this year. The program will provide mentoring and educational enrichment as well as expose students to career opportunities and offer financial scholarships for post-secondary education.
2. YMI and CUNY will partner to expand CUNY Tutor Corps to offer academic tutoring and near-to-peer mentoring to 3,600 additional DOE students. CUNY students who are within the NYC Men Teach pipeline will be prioritized for this paid tutoring opportunity. These students are all males of color who are succeeding in their college programs.
3. YMI will award $500,000 in grants to local community-based organizations that offer tutoring, mentoring and social emotional support to at least 4,000 students during this pandemic. The application period for the funding opportunity opens September 21 and closes October 5. Learn more at NYC.gov/YMI

The Mentors Matter initiative will strengthen community infrastructure – through funding local community-based organizations – and leverage successful black and brown mentors to assist their younger community members.

The Young Men’s Initiative:
The Young Men’s Initiative is the nation’s most comprehensive municipal effort to tackle the broad disparities slowing the advancement of Black and Latino young men. Through innovative partnerships, YMI offers targeted programming aimed at addressing disparities across education, health, employment, and the criminal justice system

One Hundred Black Men:
The mission of One Hundred Black Men, Inc. of New York (OHBM) is to play a proactive role in leveraging our collective talent, ability and energy toward achieving meaningful gains for the Black community. One Hundred Black Men initiatives focus on education through mentoring, wealth building strategies, fostering economic development and raising awareness of health issues affecting our communities.

CUNY’s Tutoring Corps:
CUNY Tutor Corps (CTC), initiated in 2016, is a partnership between CUNY’s Office of K-16 Initiatives, the New York City DOE (Department of Education), and the Office of the Mayor. Our goal is to reduce barriers to academic and professional achievement in STEM by providing matriculated CUNY students with the opportunity to tutor and mentor public middle and high school students, improving the academic performance, confidence, and college and career readiness of NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE) students.