Giving Compass' Take:

• Seedling Foundation pairs mentors with students who have a parent in prison to offer support and guidance. 

• How can philanthropy help to support mentorship programs? How can philanthropists become effective mentors? 

• Learn more about the benefits of mentoring.

I crossed the border from Mexico with my parents when I was 6 years old.

But less than a year after we arrived, my mom got a call, and I heard my dad had been arrested for driving under the influence. He was incarcerated for two years. Suddenly, it was like being on a tour without a guide. He could speak English, but none of us could, and my mom couldn’t drive.

When he was arrested a second time—a DUI, again—our life flipped upside down, again.

After my father’s second arrest, he was detained and then deported. He tried to cross the border, but was detained and deported again.

In middle school, I started to notice that other kids in my position, with fathers in prison and mothers always working, were finding family elsewhere—in gangs. I felt like I had a lot in common with those kids. They sold drugs, and it seemed like such an easy way to help your family with money. But I was small for my age, so I was afraid, watching my friends get “jumped” as part of gang initiations.

I think the principal at my school could tell I was slipping.

In seventh grade, she told me she’d be assigning me a mentor; there was an organization, called the Seedling Foundation, that provided adult mentors for kids with parents in prison.

His name was Tucker. He started showing up once a week. Little by little, I opened up. I had never talked to a grown man in this way about myself.

“You know what?” I said one day. “It’s pretty rough. My friends are having fun on the weekends, and I can’t go because I have to watch my siblings. I want to give up on school.” I’d never said these things to my mom or dad. I was keeping so much inside me. And I think that’s why I’d gotten close to joining a gang.

Read the full article about mentoring by Kevin as told to Maurice Chammah at The Marshall Project.