Elevate USA

Program Overview and Background

Elevate USA’s mission is: Building long-term, life-changing relationships with youth, equipping them to thrive and contribute to their community. Elevate affiliates across the country provide a proven program model which has changed the lifetime trajectory of thousands of youth through a holistic mentoring program that delivers accredited high school classes focused on social-emotional competencies as well as mentoring in the evenings, weekend and throughout holidays and the summer vacation.

Program Services

Elevate hires and trains full-time, salaried mentors who come from similar backgrounds as participating youth. These mentors build relationships with mentees through 1) teaching accredited high school classes in the public schools, 2) mentoring in the evenings, weekends, and vacations, 3) conducting adventure activities, and 4) assisting mentees with a plan for college or career after high school. A unique component of the program involves cross-age mentoring where high school students mentor elementary students on a weekly basis. This unique approach successfully builds the caring, adult relationships and leadership skills needed to help youth on the path to graduation and success after high school.

Target Population

The target population served by this project is students in urban and rural public schools where high school graduation rates are lowest. Elevate programs will be conducted in New York City, Lowell and Lawrence MA, Orlando, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Denver, Kansas City, Dallas, Savannah GA, Paterson NJ, Birmingham, The Navajo Nation (AZ), Atlanta and Bridgeport CT. Elevate works with students in public schools (4th – 12th grades) that are in low-income areas, have under performing and highly at-risk student populations, high minority populations and have high dropout rates. Elevate targets schools with high risk students based on the following criteria: Graduation rates of 78% or lower, schools rated as failing or low performing, 70% or higher eligibility for free or reduced lunch program, 70% minority representation, demonstrated trends and reported indicators of high crime levels. Approximately 95% of participating mentees are minority youth. For this specific project, high school students between 14 and 17 are targeted.