JANUARY 2018 32 | {charity spotlight} GIVING BACK NEW PATHWAYS FOR YOUTH New Pathways for Youth was founded in 1989 as Greater Phoenix Youth at Risk to deliver mentor programming to transform the lives of youth in difficult circumstances. In its first year, it provided mentoring services to 40 young people — and now it has grown to provide services to over 500 pre-teens and teens annually. Since it was founded, New Pathways for Youth has served more than 5,500 young people in the community. Just five years ago, the nonprofit changed its name to reflect the desires and beliefs of the youth it serves. “New Pathways has been a part of the Phoenix community for almost 30 years,” said president and CEO Christy McClendon. “Our youth identified that they didn’t want to be known as youth at risk and what they found instead was a new pathway. Our name changed with the input and involvement of our youth and we became New Pathways for Youth.” The organization utilizes research and evidence-based curricula to make the largest possible impact on youth — empowering them to move past self-defeating thoughts, create new possibilities, and develop the life skills they need to reach their goals. “We were founded understanding that we all have greater possibility within ourselves than we often realize and sometimes it takes someone else seeing that possibility and helping us develop that understanding, that awareness and then develop the skills to live into that and identifying a well-trained volunteer mentor to do that is key,” she said. THE STORY Jamie Killin | CONTRIBUTING WRITER

JANUARY 2018 | 33 THE CAUSE New Pathways for Youth utilizes mentoring to empower youth and ultimately aid in ending the cycle of poverty. “We recognize a couple of forms of data,” McClendon said. “One is the data that talks about the way that we break the cycle of poverty is through education and employment. We all know that, we read about it, we hear about it, but when we really dive deep into what it takes to break the cycle of poverty there’s a third element — and it’s relationships.” McClendon said these relationships are what allow children in poverty to build a network that exposes them to new possibilities and resources as well as helping them to develop critical skills like shaking hands, making eye contact and communicating effectively. The population New Pathways for Youth serves are teens and pre-teens coming from at-risk scenarios — who are facing extreme poverty, difficult home situations and are struggling in school. “Our belief system here at New Pathways is that there are no bad kids,” she said. “There are kids having to make very difficult choices. How we intervene and support and interrupt that process so that they take responsibility for those actions and start to see other possibilities and ways to accomplish their goals that are more meaningful, rewarding and positive in their own way.” According to McClendon, the risks facing these youths are extreme and include problematic decision making and crisis decision making that can lead to health issues, low livable wages and ultimately a New Pathways for Youth mentor and mentee