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 It's sunny and 95 in Phoenix as 13-year-old Steve attacks the weeds growing in the sandlot at the Downtown Neighborhood Learning Center. Nicknamed "Opie" for his cropped red hair and freckles, he works up a sweat prying the stubborn roots loose with a shovel. This is Make a Difference Day, when youth volunteers tackle community projects all over the city. Steve and his MatchPoint mentor, Scott Darnall, have been assigned with other MatchPoint participants to clean up the learning center's lot.
Steve and Scott have been "hanging out" for about four months now. "I like hanging out with Scott because he's funny," Steve says. "He has a lot of humor like I do."
On the other side of the lot, 15-year-old Angie and her mentor, Trish Nielsen, rake up the weeds and dump them into garbage bags. They've been a MatchPoint team for a year. "It's good for me," Trish contends. "I've never been very disciplined in my life. I don't have children; this has gotten me out of my comfort zone."
Good for Angie, too. MatchPoint has improved her confidence level, Trish says. "She was real quiet; she would not talk to other kids. Now she talks; she's more secure. She's way more confident."
In its two years of operation in Phoenix, Prison Fellowship's MatchPoint program has made some 70 mentor-matches between at-risk youth aged 8 to 18 and caring Christian adults. About 40 of those matches are currently active. The adult mentors spend three to five hours a week with their matches, helping with homework, talking, or maybe going out for pizza or bowling. Mentors are carefully screened and trained, and sign an agreement for a year-long commitment. "One of the things that I like about MatchPoint is that it's volunteer-driven," says Director Bill Brittain.
"It empowers the community to give back to the kids. Not paid professionals who have to have an education and years of experience, but people who may be businessmen or ministers, or have a wide-ranged background of experiences - if they're willing to make a commitment, they can be a part of it. That makes it much more cost-effective as well as effective. It helps build trust with the kids - many of the kids are used to having probation officers, case managers, counselors, and several other different types of adults in and out of their lives. So to have someone who's there just because they want to be there is a new experience.
"With kids you have to earn the right to be heard," Brittain adds. "The problems our kids deal with are relationally based. Most of them have never had the trust that's necessary to grow into a healthy adult. We tend to expect that kids will just become healthy, mature adults if we just tell them what they have to do. Obviously if that were the answer, we'd just sit them all in front of a video, and we'd have a wonderful society. But it's a whole lot more than just telling them what's right and wrong."
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