Back in 2008, YELLS started out as a mentoring program only, matching Marietta High School ‘Bigs’ with 3rd-5th grade Franklin Gateway ‘Littles’ in personalized mentoring relationships that the students then nurture throughout the year. Since then, YELLS has evolved into a dynamic and multifaceted organization that serves the Franklin Gateway community with three different programs. But the Mentoring Program has always stood apart from the others as a special after-school experience that provides the opportunity for elementary school Littles to be mentored by a high school Big, empowering each other to rise up as leaders while serving their community.
In years past, our mentoring youth have organized various community projects aimed at serving the residents of Franklin Gateway. From neighborhood-wide soccer tournaments to the annual Franklin Fair, these community projects are the result of months of consistent hard work and dedication from our Bigs and Littles. So when COVID-19 shut down all YELLS operations back in March 2020, our Mentoring Program Coordinator, Ms. Brittany, had to rethink how this program could serve these students during this difficult period in their lives.
“In 2019 when I accepted the job, 2020 happened. Projects were canceled; 2021 the same thing. So I have not seen what the big grand finale is supposed to be with these kids. My grand finale was always different,” Ms. Brittany said. “For a lot of our virtual programming and concepts, I had to take the emphasis off of creating community projects; it was more so about surviving the pandemic mentally. A lot of the lessons and everything that we began to talk about was about taking care of yourself during the virtual world, protecting your peace, treating others the way you want to be treated, being a leader, being a light that shines in dark places, those types of things.”
As important as these life skills are for kids to practice during a pandemic, the past two years have certainly been a challenge for the Mentoring Program. Our Bigs had to juggle the emotional toll of the pandemic while attending virtual school during the day, and once it came time for students to log on to Zoom for the Mentoring Program, Ms. Brittany said some students had lost the motivation to connect. As the program coordinator, this hit her hard, and when our programs finally returned to in-person for the start of the 2021/22 school year, Ms. Brittany was fired up to revive the Mentoring Program and provide a safe space for Bigs and Littles to mentor and support each other. More so, she was determined to make the program a meaningful and exciting experience for the students by building up the anticipation for the big day when the Bigs and Littles finally discovered their permanent mentoring match! This is called the Match Party, and it is a fundamental part of this program. Celebrating this milestone goes a long way in how the Bigs and Littles approach and ultimately realize their community projects.
“The whole point of this program existing is for them to be mentors and mentees to one another. So if (the match party) is not special, what’s making it special for them to even want to be a part of this program? That’s how I began to look at it,” Ms. Brittany said. “Once you finally bring them all in a room, and it’s like ‘Hey, somebody across the room from you is going to be your mentor and y’all are gonna do the school year together.’ If that’s the root and the foundation of this program, knowing that this is going to be your person and this is gonna be your person, why not drag it out and make it dramatic and exciting!”
That being said, the Match Party is only successful through the hard work that our youth put in during the weeks building up to that day. And there was a lot of work to be done before they could reap the rewards!
Mentoring Boot Camp
The purpose of the Mentoring Program is to equip our Bigs with the skills and training they need to impact their community while setting a positive example for their Littles. But before our Bigs even get to meet the Littles, they have to attend a weekend of leadership training that we call Mentoring Boot Camp! Led by Ms. Brittany, the Mentoring Boot Camp gives our Bigs their first taste of the Mentoring Program and sets the expectations for the year. It is in these training sessions that they first learn how to use their newfound leadership skills to successfully mentor their Littles while also serving their community.
This year, Mentoring Boot Camp started off with outdoor communication games that challenged our Bigs to communicate effectively to overcome obstacles that might arise when working towards a common goal. As they eventually begin organizing their community projects, these communication skills will be key in delegating tasks and solving real-world problems in order to see their hard work come to life. Additionally, every game that they play during Boot Camp are games that they can lead for the Littles later on, so learning these leadership skills plays an important role for our Bigs in developing their special mentoring relationships.
Next up, our Bigs set off on a community-wide scavenger hunt armed with pen and paper to assess the needs of Franklin Gateway. They took notes on the community needs and assets that they found, and in doing so learned to think critically about the ways that they can impact and serve their community! After exploring Franklin Gateway, our Bigs reconvened in the Community Action Café where they discussed the strengths and areas for growth they observed throughout the community, pinning their observations on the wall to create a giant mind-map.
The back wall of the Community Action Café became a tapestry of community needs and good ideas, and visualizing these needs gave our Bigs a strong framework of the kinds of community projects that would best address the needs of people living on Franklin Gateway. This was vital as our Bigs began to understand that they possess the knowledge and power required to leave a lasting impact on their community.
“I feel like the fact that as teenagers, they’ve already made the decision to want to even be a part of the organization before they even know what the organization is going to give them. I think they’re set apart to be a different type of person, a different type of teenager.” Ms. Brittany said. “So it doesn’t make it hard to take them on this journey because they already stepped out the first box, which is what high school was supposed to be or what they’re supposed to do as a high school teenager. They’re just ready to be different.”
First Day of Mentoring
Shortly after boot camp, all of our mentoring kids came together for day one of the Mentoring Program for that year! This was the first real opportunity for Bigs and Littles to meet each other, and it was also the first opportunity for Ms. Brittany to set the tone for what the kids should expect from this program. She’s had a vision of what this program is meant to look like since 2019, and the time has finally come to follow through on those expectations and hit the ground running!
More than anything, day one of the Mentoring Program serves to introduce our youth to the ‘one tribe’ mentality needed to succeed in this program. This is the theme of the Mentoring Program, and as in any tribe, our Mentoring Program youth must operate as a collective in order to achieve their goals for this year and foster their mentoring relationships.
“A tribe is a group of people or organization of people that work together, to live, to eat, to take care of one another and things of that sort. And I think that means a lot,” Ms. Brittany said. “So for the mentoring kids in the YELLS space, us being this group of people that have to work with little kids and give to the community and all of these things, we are doing a lot together. And I feel like the only way for us to be able to accomplish the things that we’re supposed to do within a year is if we’re all on the same page of understanding that foundation; that we’re doing this together, we’re a unit of people, we’re a group of people. So therefore we need to operate as a tribe, we need to have that mentality for us to all be successful.”
Day one was mostly spent playing different group games where our youth got the chance to learn more about one another while working together. It was also Ms. Brittany’s first chance to gauge compatibility between different Bigs and Littles, and this would serve to inform her decisions on how to later pair the Bigs and Littles at the Match Party.
Mentoring Cause Tables
A month later, our Bigs came in for their first real test as community servant-leaders. They were tasked with hosting a Cause Tables event, bringing together community expert guests to learn about and discuss a wide array of pertinent social causes. As our Bigs began to dream about using their skills and passions to make change, our Cause Tables event provided an opportunity for them to engage with different perspectives and ideas for how they can better understand the needs within our Franklin Gateway community and generate lasting change.
This event was a significant moment for our mentoring kids because it was their first chance to take charge of something bigger than themselves in this program! Our high school Bigs practiced their public speaking and leadership skills as they introduced their guests, welcomed them into the YELLS space, and facilitated important conversations about how to serve their community as it relates to those challenges. The experts we brought in held a wealth of knowledge relating to topics like soccer and community building, the Black Lives Matter movement, the power of social media, strengthening police relations in the community, and more! As our Bigs went around to each table and engaged with experts, these discussions began to spur ideas among our Bigs on how they can best apply this information to their future community projects.
Special thanks to all of our special guests who shared their wisdom and experiences with our high school Bigs! These guests include:
- Ms. Amanda Biehler, Biology & Psychology Graduate: Vaccine advocate
- Mrs. Daneea Badio-McCray, Marietta Police Athletic League Exec. Director, and Sergeant Cliff Kelker with the Cobb County Sheriff Department: Strengthening police + community relations
- Dr. Folami Prescott Adams, CEO of HTI Catalysts: Black Lives Matter and Listening 4 Justice
- Jason Longshore, Commentator for Atlanta United FC: Soccer and Community Building
- Kevin Keefe, Engineer at Emory University: Transit and People-Centered Community
- Dey Stegall, founder of ‘Pour Girls’: The Power of Social Media
We look forward to the passion projects our Bigs create and how they will make a lasting difference for our Franklin Gateway Community alongside their Littles!
The Match Party!
Finally the big day came when our Bigs and Littles would learn their official mentoring matches! The Match Party is a big deal, and Ms. Brittany wanted the kids to feel that energy the second they walked in the room. The theme of the party this year was Fear Factor: scattered around The Radisson were different stations, each with a challenge that our mentoring kids had to complete in order to receive a clue that would bring them a step closer to uncovering their mentoring matches!
“This year was the first year of really upping the ante and building the suspense!” Ms. Brittany said. “And not only that, Brandon (a Little), bless his heart, back in 2019 he left a message in our suggestion box and I never let it go: less talking, more games. These kids come here on Tuesday ready to experience something. I have been told over the years that ‘Tuesday’s my favorite day of the week’ or ‘I love mentoring’ or ‘Ms Brittany what we doing this year?’ It’s an excitement that they have about this program, and I can’t let them down, right? I wanted them to be as fear factored and pushed to the limits and build as much suspense as possible. So Match Day happened.”
And pushed to the limits they were! Each challenge was an opportunity for our Bigs and Littles to jump out of their comfort zone and demonstrate to each other the characteristics needed to thrive in the Mentoring Program. Being a risk-taker, going above and beyond for your tribe, uplifting each other to achieve a shared goal; all of this was on display as Bigs and Littles navigated the Fear Factor course. But above all else, Ms. Brittany wanted the Bigs and Littles to have fun and make lasting memories as they progressed through each station together.
Some of the challenges they faced included sticking their arm into mystery boxes filled with slimy substances to fish out clues, or a blind taste testing that pushed our youth to try things they normally wouldn’t. It was beautiful chaos as our Bigs and Littles started completing the challenges and getting messy in the process! At times there were some Bigs who were hesitant towards some of the challenges, and wondered why they were being put through these obstacles. At first, Ms. Brittany took this as a sign that the Match Party wasn’t achieving its intended purpose of bringing Littles and Bigs together. But in reflecting on this, she soon saw it as a valuable teaching moment for everyone.
“I had to let myself sit with the realization that I did nothing but let them know ‘Hey you got a goal. The goal is to find this person that you’ve been looking for since you joined this organization, how are you going to get to it?’ The same thing is going to come when we begin to tackle service projects. This is the goal this day, this time, this place. How are you going to get to it?” Ms. Brittany recalled. “I’m giving them nothing but what life is going to throw at them. And I’m hoping that the mindset of this, even outside of YELLS, applies and they get it. So once I stepped back and really thought about the magic that was born at the Match Party, I thought it was great.”
As Bigs and Littles made their way across the finish line, it was heartwarming to see the excitement in the kids’ faces as they finally uncovered their mentoring matches! Many of the Bigs and Littles had developed strong friendships even before the Match Party, so to see their expectations of who they would be matched with realized was a special thing. The rest of the match party was just that: a party! Matches took fun pictures together and played different games to bond and get to know each other and celebrate their new mentoring relationships.
The Match Party would not have been possible without the strong support of The Radisson Hotel and their amazing team member, Richard Leon, who believed in the power of our YELLS Mentoring Program model and opened their doors every Tuesday for our youth to grow and learn as change-makers and leaders!
Looking Ahead to Community Projects
Every step along the Mentoring Program journey this year provided valuable moments that our mentoring kids can learn from in order to tackle their community projects. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted so much of the work that our mentoring kids were striving for in the past, so this upcoming year really feels like a pivotal moment for our youth as far as developing their mentoring bonds and achieving their service project goals. For some, the desire to succeed has been lit for a while now.
“There’s a fire that’s lit from returning Bigs from 2019. Returning Bigs are like, ‘we want to do this and we want it now!'” Ms. Brittany said. “We have a senior that’s been here since 2019 and she loves this program. She wants this for herself. She wants to know that she did this. She knows she has a group working with her, and they’ve always gotten these bits and pieces. We’ll talk about projects, and we’ll start working on them. But she knows all of this stuff, and she wants to bust this thing out so bad!”
This year, our Bigs and Littles are planning to organize two amazing community projects! The first is a single mothers event aimed at supporting single mothers in the community by connecting them with local resources, as well as building a network of mothers willing to support and uplift each other when needed! We are beyond proud of our Bigs for having the awareness and empathy to think of the mothers of our community in this way, and we are excited to see the impact that this event will have in Franklin Gateway.
The second event is the Franklin Fair! The Franklin Fair is an annual celebration of the local community that sees Franklin Gateway residents come together to eat culturally diverse dishes from local restaurants and play fun carnival games with family and neighbors! These community events are a thoughtful and honest reflection of the kids within our mentoring program, and we’re immensely proud of the work they’ve done so far, and also of the work yet to come. Currently, the Bigs are working on drafting proposal letters to connect with partners that can help provide all the resources and materials to make their events a success! For Ms. Brittany, to see all of this come to fruition would mean the world for her and the youth in this program.
“My goal this year, I really want the double cherry on top,” she says. “I want to put on the service projects, I want to see that happen. I want to see myself at the Franklin Fair with the flash mob that I’ve been hoping to do since 2019. Me sitting in a chair, sitting back eating a hot dog and having a slushy. I want to see them smile and be able to say ‘yeah, we did that y’all, period.’ I want to hear that type of fellowship be able to happen. But the same mission still continues is that I’m helping build strong, positive, knowing-how-to-protect-their-peace young people.”
“I want to see this program come out of my hands and fall into the hands of the teenagers. I want the Littles to feel like they really have a friend in these Bigs. And I feel like that’s happening. I just want us to keep having a good time. That’s what I really, really want. And if I know that the positive feedback is Tuesday’s their favorite day, as long as Tuesday continues to be their favorite day, I feel like I’m winning. I feel like the program is winning.”
