Nationally, BBBS is one of the most sophisticated youth mentoring programs in the United States. BBBS of the Greater Twin Cities is the sixth largest affiliate of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and serves an 11-county area in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. It has been serving the community for 88 years, and has helped enrich the lives of tens of thousands of young people by creating and supporting nurturing relationships with volunteer mentors and helping the youth to develop key assets that have been proven to build a firm foundation for growth and development.

Project Focus: BBBS serves youth who are enrolled in the Andersen Elementary School and the Andersen Open School in South Minneapolis. BBBSGTC serves the 11-county metropolitan area surrounding the Greater Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) in Minnesota. Because this project supports our work and Andersen, especially the Hispanic Mentoring Initiative, we provide below some of the demographic data related to the Hispanic/Latino community that we serve through this initiative and our overall programs.

The two main urban counties served by BBBS are Hennepin (Minneapolis) and Ramsey (St. Paul) Counties, which are top among Minnesota counties with the highest percentages of Hispanic children.

According to 2000 census data, the number of Minnesotans people identifying themselves as Hispanic more than doubled in the past 10 years. According to All Kids Count! A publication of the Children’s Defense Fund of MN (http://www.cdf-mn.org/PDF/Publications/AllKidsCount.pdf accessed 3/10/07), there were 55,640 Hispanic children living in Minnesota in 2000. Latinos were the fastest growing group of children in the state, increasing by 147% between the 1990 and 2000 census counts. Not only are they the fastest growing ethnic/racial group in Minnesota, the data shows that Latino children face many disparities which bring additional challenges.

• Poverty. Statewide, in 2000, there were 28,398 Hispanic children enrolled in Minnesota schools. Of these, 64.9% lived at or below 185% of the poverty line (and thus qualified for a free or reduced-cost lunch), as opposed to only 17.5% of white children.

• Health. Hispanics in Minnesota have the highest rate of teen pregnancies of any racial/ethnic group (83 per 1,000 births are to a mother between 15 and 17 years of age) and the highest percentage of children without health insurance (15.9%). Additionally, 22% of Ninth Graders experienced Emotional Distress in 1998.

• Safety. They had the highest percentages of ninth graders involved in fights (25% versus 13% for whites beat up another person three times or more in the preceding 12 months) Further, 20% of Ninth graders experienced physical abuse by a family member in 1998.

• Education. The percentage of Hispanic students who passed basic standards tests in 1999-2000 were: 53% for reading, 40% for math, and 65% for writing. Further, 31% of students did not graduate on time, due to dropping out of school (1999).

For our overall efforts at expanding our work with the Hispanic/Latino community, we targeted the above-described youth. For this specific initiative, we focus our efforts on children affiliated with our school-based program at the Andersen Schools. BBBSGTC currently operates site-based programs in the Hans Christian Andersen Open School (a K-8 school serving 1,000 children) and the Andersen Elementary School (a K-5 school serving nearly 350 students) in south Minneapolis.

These schools have large Latino student populations : Andersen Elementary is comprised of 65% Hispanic students Andersen Open is comprised of 61% Hispanic students.

The schools are located in an area of Minneapolis that is severely economically-challenged; these students face many community and socio-economic barriers to educational and life successes.

During the2007-2008 academic year, BBBS achieved the following through operating the School-Based Mentoring Program at the Andersen Schools:

• Youth Served: 43 youth were served by mentors.

• Major Activities Undertaken: We offered our one-to-one mentoring program; provided academic support; and continued a partnership with Hennepin County in which 22 adult volunteers mentored children. We also began implementing a Hispanic Mentoring Initiative at the Andersen Schools, through which we served 8 children who are Hispanic/Latino (our goal for the 2008-9 school year is to serve 13 children in that program).

• Additions for the next academic year: In 2008-9 we plan to serve 50-70 children through the Andersen Schools, provided we can recruit enough volunteers to be matched with youth waiting to be served.