Kids of Promise

For many boys, being asked by an adult male mentor to play a pickup game of basketball is a chance to show off their athletic prowess and an opportunity to playfully tease the mentor that age is not on his side. However, this seemingly fun activity is initiated with precaution at Kids of Promise, Path of Life Ministries’ mentoring program for children of prisoners located in Riverside, California. “Some kids never shot hoops with an older man,” says Pastor Raul Diaz, executive director of Path of Life. “It’s very strange for them. I have kids that are here that when you put them in the presence of an older man they just break out into a sweat because all their life they’ve been raised by their mom and they don’t know how to relate to a man.”

Most of the children in the Riverside community, which is located about 25 miles outside of Los Angeles, come from poor single-family homes. “This is where everyone ends up that’s in trouble, that’s running from the police, that’s poor, that’s struggling, that’s come across hard times,” said Pastor Diaz. “They all end up in this area.”

Six years ago Pastor Diaz decided to do something about these staggering statistics by starting Path of Life Ministries. Today, Path of Life provides substance abuse programs for men and women, operates paroling programs, maintains the women’s and children’s shelter for the region, runs all the homeless programs for the city, and is the largest provider of beds in Riverside County, according to Pastor Diaz. Mentoring children of prisoners became a part of Path of Life’s strategic plan four years ago. “Part of our vision is if we could impact the kids, in 10 years we could transform the community,” says Pastor Diaz.

Although the agency started an informal mentoring program for children of prisoners four years ago, funding from the Department of Health and Human Services in 2003 enabled Path of Life to “create a working model that works for us, that works for this community,” says Pastor Diaz. “We have had the opportunity to establish collaborative relationships with the universities and the different supportive agencies like child protective services and the school districts. Now it is recognized that we’re an integral part of the community so we can continue, I believe, long after the funding is gone.”

Developing relationships with local universities has been key to increasing the Kids of Promise volunteer base. Under the program, for the first few months, volunteers meet with mentees for a couple hours a week after school in one of Path of Life’s four designated facilities, the computer learning center, music room, recreation room, or the sports field. Once the agency has had a chance to observe the match, Saturday visits are allowed, if approved by the caregiver. “We’re trying to be very careful,” says Pastor Diaz, a need that has been reiterated by their liability insurer.

Path of Life is located across the street from a high school, and a few blocks from both a junior high school and an elementary school. The agency is in a central location to the local universities also. This makes the program easily accessible to both the children and the agency’s largest volunteer base. Based on the structure of the Kids of Promise mentoring program, it has been challenging to recruit solely from area congregations, where many of the members commute long distances to work and arrive home too late to participate with a child during the after-school hours. About 20 percent of Kids of Promise mentors come from area congregations and 80 percent from local universities.

In addition to the mentoring program at their facility, Path of Life subcontracts to three other similarly structured children of prisoner mentoring programs across the city. Path of Life keeps 25 percent of their grant and distributes the rest of the funds to these agencies. The programs are doing well, with 277 mentors and mentees matched.

Based on Riverside’s demographics, there is an overabundance of children that qualify for Kids of Promise. “In the neighborhood, it’s not really something that is hidden,” said Pastor Diaz. “Everyone knows whose parents are in jail. The kids will come and sign up and we make contact with the (caregiver).”

Four years ago Path of Life sponsored its first annual outreach program, which was located in a park that was a drug-infested war zone. Police refused to exit their vehicles the first year of the program, and the few who did brought suppression units, says Pastor Diaz. Today, the outreach program attracts about 4,000 people, and approximately 100 children sign up for Kids of Promise each year. The entire community looks forward to the annual event, which takes place the last Saturday before school starts. Participants enjoy food, music, games, gifts, free haircuts for children, as well as many other activities. The gangs may not have dissolved, but they fully support the event and don’t jeopardize its safety. The fire department does the cooking and the police join in the festivities as well.

“So now it’s a real bridge to the community and we believe that the next generation of kids are not going to have that type of animosity towards law enforcement because they’ve seen the other side,” says Pastor Diaz. “They’ve seen police officers that have actually taken the time to come out and meet them and talk with them.”

Summer 2005