Tomorrow's Leaders is a non-profit 501 (3) c ministry that helps mentor young boys and girls that come from troubled homes, incarcerated parents and environments that put them at risk. These young leaders are assigned to a mentor. These mentors consist of upstanding men and women from the community that will meet with them at least twice per month at their school for lunch. These lunch visits will allow our young leaders to bond with their mentor by engaging in discussions that will motivate, challenge and overall make the young leader feel valued in today's world.
Tomorrow's Leaders supports LISD's ongoing efforts to address the state's STAAR objectives and impact students though character building, attendance, and core knowledge. We build capacity by: engaging the students in team building, mentoring, by providing opportunities to enhance self-esteem through exposure to the college environment, to hear from expert presenters, to hear the true stories of real life heroes who helped shape history, to witness and learn about scientific events as well as the important of science and through exposure to community service opportunities, all designed to build leadership in Tomorrow's Leaders.
Our mission is summed up in these few simple words "Building Strong
Youth Rather
Than Repairing Broken Adults". Here at Tomorrow's Leaders, we believe that mentoring at
an early age is essential to molding our students into strong and successful
adults. By
targeting these students at the 5th grade level, we are able to guide them and
educate them before they face the pressures of Middle School and High School. If we
can prepare and uplift these students before they become teenagers, then we believe
they will be more resilient to the challenges they may face as they get older
and will make better decisions.
The idea of starting a mentoring program first occurred to Noe Brito five
years ago, and it blossomed into a program called Tomorrow’s Leaders when he
met co-directors Michael Goen and Eric Strong. Each of these directors
brought with them unique talents and backgrounds from their own
organizations. According to Noe,
“Everything Eric Strong touches turns to gold. Michael Goen is a man of
integrity who has a passion to serve, as does Eric.” By joining together,
they felt that they each could help bridge the gap in helping our young
boys. They began their first year of Tomorrow’s Leaders with 40 economically
disadvantaged fifth-grade boys in the fall 2009.
In the fall of 2013, the program was expanded to include 5th grade girls. The pilot program began at Ramirez, Ervin and Guadalupe. the program currently serves 22 girls. The program is led by Sylvia Brito and Dianne McAlister. Since then the program has grown in numbers and has plans to expand to other schools.
Shield
The shield represents our organization as a whole. It protects our young leaders from falling off that narrow path that can lead them to failure.Tree
The tree roots represent the seed that we are planting in our young leader. Over time, the seed will sprout and take root. The same can be said for the message of hope that we are trying to deliver through this organization. This message is a seed that is planted and will one day grow and develop our young leaders into strong and successful citizens who will eventually put down roots with a successful marriage and family.Hourglass
The hourglass represents this very important time in this young leader's life.Graduation Cap
The cap stresses the importance of getting an education. Many of our events focus around education and highlight the new to continue on to College.