The Obama Foundation,update

 

About Our Programs The Center Discover Donate

Hi there,I’m Mike Trout, the founder of an organization called Young Men’s Education Network (YMEN). I started YMEN soon after moving to the North Lawndale neighborhood in Chicago because I noticed the boys and young men around me lacked opportunities to learn from positive male role models in their community.  Over two decades later, YMEN has grown from a small after-school tutoring program in my apartment to an organization that helps hundreds of students each year excel in school and become leaders in their community.  More recently, the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance at the Obama Foundation has become an important partner for us. YMEN received funds through the Freedom Summer grant program, which you can learn more about here, last year and this year.  We see an uptick in violence during the summer months, so getting support to help us ramp up our programming and mentorship during students’ time outside the classroom has been critical.  The past couple of summers, we’ve used these extra resources to turn some of the vacant and nuisance properties in the neighborhood into urban gardens. Freedom Summer is showing that our children are worth investing in, and in turn, we’re showing our young women and men that the communities around them are worth taking care of and worth taking ownership of.  We’re growing everything from strawberries to sweet potatoes in these 19 gardens, and as the fruits and vegetables are harvested, our youth are able to take the produce they grew home to their families for them to enjoy together.  I’m so grateful that the Obama Foundation and the MBK Alliance see the potential I see in these young people and in this community. This is a lesson that anyone can take into their community: Our youth are worth investing in! Young people have as much to teach us as we have to teach them, so I hope YMEN’s story will inspire you to strike up a conversation with a young person and add some positivity to their life when they may need it the most. For more inspiration, you can read about the Freedom Summer grant program and the other incredible organizations that have received grants this year.  Thanks for taking a moment to learn about our work.  –Mike Mike Trout Founder, Young Men’s Education Network DONATE NOW