A Breakfast with Dads’ event was planned at Dallas’s Billy Earl Dade Middle School, where 90% of students are from low-income families. Child advocate Kristina Dove was concerned that some students would not have a father available to attend, so she posted an appeal on social media. Stephanie Drenka, a Dallas photographer who works with Dove, said they hoped to get 50 male mentors through their Facebook appeal for the 150 male students ages 11 to 13 who had signed up to attend the event.
Nearly 600 men showed up, according to The Washington Post. The unexpected influx caused the event to be moved from the school’s cafeteria to the gymnasium.
Drenka wrote on her blog: “I will never forget witnessing the young students surrounded by supportive community members. There were so many volunteers, that at times I saw young men huddled in the center of 4–5 mentors. The look of awe—even disbelief—in the students’ eyes as they made their way through the crowd of ‘Dads’ was astonishing.” Drenka photographed the event, with some difficulty. “It was a miracle any of the pictures came out in focus, because I could barely see clearly through the tears streaming down my face and fogged-up glasses.”
The Rev. Donald Parish Jr. of True Lee Missionary Baptist Church, who helped organize the event, told the Dallas Morning News, “When a young person sees someone other than their teacher take interest in them, it inspires them.”
Jamil “The Tie Man” Tucker told students and guests that learning to tie a necktie is a rite of passage some young men never experience. Mentors handed out ties to eager students and helped them perfect their half-Windsor knots.
The role of adult role models and mentors in forming the character of young people is difficult to overstate because, as James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson write in The Content of Their Character, a summary of field research in American high schools from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, character “is constituted by the enactment of moral ideals espoused within a tradition and enacted within the institutions of particular communities.”
At Billy Earl Dade Middle school, nearly 600 men stepped forward in action. For the young men at Dade who may have lacked a father or father-figure in their lives, there’s the possibility that some of these men will become that presence in their lives.
If you’re recruiting mentors for your community, social media may work. If you’re looking for the opportunity to invest in mentoring, the Mentoring Initiative has a tool to help you find a quality program in your area that is seeking mentors.
