Mentoring Funding - Your Help Needed

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 - On March 9, 2010, House Mentoring Caucus Co-chair Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) began collecting signatures on our annual mentoring funding request letter for FY11.

As in years past, the House letter, addressed to Labor-HHS-Education Appropriators, requests that the Mentoring Children of Prisoners grant program again receive level funding of nearly $50 million. Each year, MENTOR has been focused on increasing and sustaining federal funding for mentoring. Since FY 2004, with your help, federal funding for the Mentoring Children of Prisoners grant program has been maintained at roughly $50 million – which has made a tremendous difference for high-need youth across the country.

The sign on deadline for Members of Congress to show their support for mentoring funding is March 17, 2010 (click here to see the electronic "dear colleague" that Representative Davis sent to House Members). Please call to ask your Representatives to sign this letter today! To find contact information for your Member, please use the following link: http://capwiz.com/mentor/dbq/officials.

Here's a sample script – please ask for the Labor-HHS Appropriations legislative staffer:

• Hello, this is [NAME] from [ORGANIZATION] and I am a strong supporter of youth mentoring.
• Mentoring Caucus Co-Chair, Representative Susan Davis of California, is circulating a joint letter supporting level funding for the Mentoring Children of Prisoners grant program, which has helped many high-need youth in [YOUR TOWN or YOUR STATE].
• I ask that Representative [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S NAME] sign on to this letter. These funds are crucial to support existing grantees in [YOUR STATE] and ensure that we can provide caring adult mentors to children who have one or both parents in prison.
• Thank you for your time, and please let me know where Representative [YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S NAME] stands on this matter.

A Senate letter should be circulated shortly and we will again need your help to have Senators sign on to show their support.

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Thank you for being a member of our advocacy network. With your help, MENTOR can continue to serve as an advocate for the expansion of mentoring for America's young people and a resource for mentors and mentoring initiatives nationwide. To join the network, please visit http://www.mentoring.org/advocate.

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