“The Hook is Key”: Mentoring Positives is Helping to Impact Our Madison Community
Will Green - working relentlessly to instill self-worth & self-confidence into our valuable youth.
Concerned about high-risk youth needing a way to find hope and encouragement, Will Green, founder of Mentoring Positives, drew upon his background in basketball. “The hook is key,” Will says, when speaking about ways to keep them engaged and giving them a platform to speak openly about peer pressure, anger management, and finding positive family figures. Will grew up in Gary, Indiana, and witnessed firsthand a variety of struggles and challenges, but always managed to find the positive out of life, especially with his basketball coach and mentor. While attending college at UW-Eau Claire, he worked for a residential treatment center for kids and teens, and this began his journey as a mentor instead of a mentee. After college, he journeyed to Madison where he started his work as a counselor and his mentoring of high-risk youth and families expanded. Throughout weekly visits, Will was able to create lasting relationships with both the high-risky youth and their families, gaining trust and helping provide guidance to guide the youth to keep themselves on the right track.
After the passing of Mr. Green’s mother, he founded Mentoring Positives, using her initials, “M.P.”, for inspiration for the nonprofit’s name. Throughout the past 13 years, Mentoring Positives has taken many winding roads, but the goal of giving a mentor to an high-risk youth who could look up to him/her, and helping provide self-confidence and self-worth has always remained. Early in his career, Will noticed that when the high-risk youth went back to their community after succeeding at treatment centers, they struggled to continue that path of success; and their environment was often not prepared to help maintain their positive path. With this in mind, Will is working to provide a holistic approach within their community instead of sending them off to treatment centers out of their home county or state. His philosophy ties to helping the individual, their family, and the community.
Currently, Mentoring Positives is focusing on what they call “social entrepreneurship”. Their core mission is to teach youth leadership, social/life skills, and creating a space to keep kids in town, to learn skills, to succeed, and not sending them away from their homes, families, and friends. They are looking at a yearlong mentoring program that draws on the kids’ inner leadership skills, relational leadership, explored leadership, and applied leadership. Upon completion of their mentored year, the kids will have created an idea for a business, worked up a business plan and proposal, and pitched it to a local business, with hopes to make it a reality. One business idea that has already been a success for Mentoring Positives is their homemade salsa. What started with growing a few peppers and tomatoes grew into a making batches of salsa, marketing to local grocers – such as Metcalfe’s Market, and making a positive impact on our community! We are not the only ones impressed with Will’s work, we are excited to report that Will was just awarded the WKOW’s Jefferson Award, recognizing valuable volunteers who are making a difference in our community. Interested in learning more about the programs. Check out Mentoring Positives.
