Boys to Men Mentoring celebrated its Night of Gratitude and Drive-In Movie Celebration on June 23 at its Spring Valley office on June 23.
BTM’s empathy-centered youth mentoring program serves 650 boys each week in 30 schools withing nine school districts across San Diego County. B2M offers guidance, direction, and hope to fragile, often shattered, young lives of promise. The nonprofit’s school and community-based weekly mentoring circles, Adventure Mountain Weekends and Celebrate Summer Program empower boys to break the cycle of violence, gangs, substance use and incarceration by teaching them how to navigate adversity with integrity and perseverance, while never losing faith in their capacity to realize their dreams. Drawing inspiration and direction from the surfing community, the non-profit is driven by a simple yet powerful idea, “In Our Lineup, Every Boy Is Family.”
The event originated during the isolation days of the COVID-19 pandemic with Night of Gratitude bringing together the B2M community to recognize and thank the nonprofit volunteers and school partners with their dedication to the organizations in-school mentoring programs and its Adventure Mountain Weekend retreats.
“The family-friendly festivities will mark the end of another inspiring school year of the nonprofit’s life-changing mission: guiding and supporting underestimated, often fatherless, teenage boys on their journey to becoming the good men they want to be,” stated a B2M spokesperson in a statement. “The number of boys growing up without fathers in their lives has reached epidemic proportions. High rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births have created a generation of fatherless boys. B2M offers guidance, direction, and hope to fragile, often shattered, young lives of promise. The nonprofit’s school and community-based weekly mentoring circles, Adventure Mountain Weekends and Celebrate Summer Program empower boys to break the cycle of violence, gangs, substance use and incarceration by teaching them how to navigate adversity with integrity and perseverance, while never losing faith in their capacity to realize their dreams.”
The awards and recognition presentation recognized B2M’s class of 2022-2023 journeymen and honored the invaluable contributions of mentors, school partners, and facilitators who bring B2M’s signature mentoring experiences and outdoor group adventures to life. A “Journeyman is a boy who completed his rite of passage experience through his participation in an Adventure Mountain Weekend retreat. With the support of his new community, a Journeyman embraces the privilege to step into a peer leadership role at future Adventure Mountain Weekends. Accepting this call to serve future teen initiates is a foundational step on his passage into adulthood.”
The organization will be holding its annual Ernie Hahn’s CaddyHack VII Golf Festival at the Fairbanks Ranch Country Club on July 24. .Billed as “The Largest, Funnest Charity Golf Tournament in Southern California,” CaddyHack has earned its chops as a must-go, signature celebration of San Diego’s best music, bites, spirits and beer, inspired by the wacky, irreverent world of the 1980 blockbuster comedy, “Caddyshack.”
