2. What is Faithful Friends?
Faithful Friends– St. Louis is a non-profit
organization that provides St. Louis’ most
at-risk children with intensive and long-
term mentors.
We take a preventive, early intervention
approach that breaks the cycle of poverty
and abuse by helping children in need
overcome the many obstacles in their
lives.
3. Our Mission:
Faithful Friends provides our community’s most
vulnerable and challenged children a loving,
caring, nurturing, and sustained relationship with
a full-time, paid, professionally trained mentor
(called a Friend) who teaches positive values and
has attainable expectations in order that each
child becomes a healthy, productive member of
our community.
We begin working with children in Kindergarten
and continue to support them through high
school graduation. Friends will spend at least 4
hours a week with each child.
4. Our History:
Entrepreneur Duncan Campbell’s own troubled youth
provided the impetus for founding Friends of the Children in
1993.
It began with three mentors (called Friends) serving 24
children in three northeast Portland, Oregon
neighborhoods.
Today, more than 80 Friends are guiding, supporting and
mentoring over 600 children in eight communities across
the country.
Faithful Friends is a faith-based model of Friends of the
Children, which began in 2006. Its only chapter is located
in St. Louis, Missouri.
5. We Are Unique:
There are three key elements that make Faithful
Friends so unique:
We mentor the children in our community who
need us the most.
Our mentors (called Friends) are full-time, paid
and professionally trained.
We make a twelve and a half year (12 ½)
commitment to each child, selecting them in
kindergarten and guiding them through high
school graduation. (There is nothing a child can
do to be kicked out of our program.)
6. A Little Bit About Our Kids:
Most of our children fall far below grade level in almost
every subject area, so much of the one-on-one time is
spent reading, working on homework, teaching study skills,
etc.
Many of our children live in dangerous neighborhoods and
some are not allowed to go out and play because it is not
safe to be outside. Our mentors take the children to fun
places like the Science Center, ice skating etc. Many of the
children in our program went swimming in a pool for the
first time during Summer Camp last summer.
Many of our children live in poverty and are the children of
parents who are or have been incarcerated, teen parents or
high school dropouts.
7. A Little Bit About Our Kids:
The majority of our children do not have a parent at home
after school and live with a single parent, a guardian,
grandparent, aunt or uncle or foster parent.
Many of our children have faced neglect and abuse.
Many of our children have seen crime firsthand, including
violent crime.
Many of our children have anger issues they do not know
how to deal with and often act out in school.
Our Friends (mentors) help our children understand the
complex and difficult world around them and work with
them to develop safe and productive ways to confront the
issues they face in their day to day lives.
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11. Three Goals Guide The Way:
We desire each of our children to
have a bright future, and we believe
they can. Our work is guided by
three long-term goals that we set for
each child in our program:
12. Goal 1
Successin school with a
minimum of H.S. diploma
(preferred) or GED
Our Success Rate:
92% attend school regularly;
82% of our program graduates have
earned a H.S. diploma or GED
more than 40% of our youth have a
parent that did not complete high
school
13. Goal 2
Avoid involvement in the juvenile
justice system
Our Success Rate:
92% have avoided the juvenile
justice system
despite at least 60% having one
or more parents who have been
incarcerated
14. Goal 3
Avoid early parenting
Our Success
98% of adolescents avoid early
parenting
despite at least 60% having been
born to a teen parent
15. Cost On the Economy
The cost for a child to be
incarcerated for one year is 87,000
The yearly cost of a teen parent is
16,000
Theyearly cost for Faithful Friends is
9,200
16. Your Support:
We know that the program model works . . . one-
on-one relationships developed at an early age
with a long-term commitment made to each
child. A secure, caring and sustained relationship
is the master key which opens minds, creates
opportunities and rekindles hope for the future.
Our desire is to change children's lives for the
better . . . one child at a time, however we need
help from people like you.
17. Your Support:
I invite you to support us by doing one or
more of the following:
Join us for one of our events
Volunteer
Financially contribute
Tell someone else about what Faithful Friends is
doing.
18. Thank You!
Thank you for
helping us serve
and save one child
at a time!
