For the past 20 years, Power4Youth faithfully served the Long Beach community through the program’s one-on-one mentoring with meeting sites across the community. Power4 Youth served over 500 mentor and mentee pairs, and fostered growth in students’ grades, interpersonal skills, and overall confidence. In December 2019, Power4Youth made the decision to end its programming and operations. Rose Park Neighborhood wants to thank Power4Youth for its long-time partnership and share a success story from Rose Park Resident and Power4Youth mentor, Sylvia Salcedo.

“Daniela and I met through Power4Youth in September 2016. I was assigned as her mentor and she my mentee. Since then, we have built a one-on-one relationship of support, trust, guidance and setting good intentions.  I believe it’s important for teens to have an adult, other than parents, to support them. My goal has always been to help Daniela grow intellectually and interpersonally.  Mentoring has been the catalyst to the self-confidence and esteem she has developed, and has contributed to her positive academic performance.  As a result, she’s very much interested in attending college to pursue a career as a nurse or physical therapist.  Helping her realize her potential has been fulfilling for me. I’m giving back to my community and have learned a lot about myself along the way.  I’m very thankful for Daniela’s trust and look forward to what I hope will be a lifelong friendship. Power4Youth was such a great and much needed program.  We were shocked and saddened to hear that it ended. We did not hesitate on making the decision to continue our mentor/mentee relationship.” – Sylvia Salcedo

Upon their closing, Power4Youth worked with local Mentoring Partners to transition students to other programs, so that the relationships that Power4Youth built continued to be fostered.