"Choice, not chance, determines one's destiny."

ROCK, Reaching Our Community Kids, is an after-school mentorship program that is targeted toward local middle school at-risk youth. It relies on the support from local high school students and community volunteers to meet with these youth weekly for socialization, tutoring, and a myriad of programs to assure that these youths are not alone in weathering the storm of adolescence. Mentors give their time to help kids who could be at risk of never finishing their education, never finding their potential, or never beliving in their abilities. 

ROCK offers a variety of programs throughout the year to promote healthy decision making including summer camp, talent shows, pet sitting training, tutoring, girls self-esteem group, hip-hop dancing, step dancing and drug awareness programs.  Community outreach is also a major component of the program.  Canned food drives for the local food pantry, providing much needed supplies for the animal shelter, delivering toiletries to seniors at the nursing home, and collecting clothing for the battered women’s shelter is just a sampling of community service projects ROCK participants are involved with. 

Our experiences have shown that youth who participate in community service projects experience enhanced self-esteem, a sense of personal competency and efficacy, engagement with the community, and social responsibility for others.