Mentoring Positives, an East Side organization that mentors vulnerable youth to become productive members of their community, recently got a big boost from another local organization, getting an $88,000 check from the 100 Men of Dane County as its second quarter grant recipient.
“We are beyond grateful to receive $88,000 to support our work with youth and families in Dane County, especially in the Darbo-Worthington neighborhood,” Will Green, the executive director of Mentoring Positives, Inc., tells Madison365.
The 100 Men of Dane County provides grants to local organizations that help women and children overcome adversity and reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. Charlie Wills, a founding member of the 100 Men of Dane County who currently sits on their board, is also a former Wisconsin Badger basketball player who used to play basketball with Green back in the day.
“I’ve known Will for 23 years and to see what he’s done with his organization over the years is just amazing,” Wills tells Madison365. “And for me to be a part of an organization that will help his organization, that’s pretty cool, too.
“Everybody in that room at the check presentation was really captured by the way that Will spoke when he talked about the impact of the gift,” Wills adds. The official check presentation occurred on May 13 at Buck and Honey in Monona. “With the Salvation Army just shutting down at the end of March, and that being such an impactful center in Darbo, this couldn’t have come at a better time, honestly, for their organization. So it was really cool to see Mentoring Positives win.”
Mentoring Positives was one of dozens of organizations that wrote a grant and submitted it to the 100 Men of Dane County, who picked three finalists, one of which was MP.
“So we do get 30 to 40 applications every quarter for grant requests. The board then takes a week to read through all of those, and then we vote individually so that we all don’t see our results,” Wills explains. “And then we send them into our admin … who tallies up everything and makes sure that she’s got all of our votes, and then we get our top three. So Mentoring Positives ended up being one of the top three.”
The three finalists were Mentoring Positives, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Dane County and Felicia’s Closet. The final competition was very competitive.
“Those three went up for the final vote, which goes out to our 90 members. It ended up being very close and Mentoring Positives won by probably three or four votes,” Wills says.
Green says that this investment will help Mentoring Positives continue to build strong relationships, uplift community voices, and create brighter futures through mentorship, athletics, entrepreneurship, and family programming.
“We wrote the grant specifically because the Salvation Army [in Darbo] had recently closed and we wanted access to the community center,” Green says. “So we met with the Salvation Army, and they allowed us to have our programming in there still. We’re going to work with them to continue to program in Darbo, so we’ll have more family-focused kind of programming this year with those funds.
“We will be hosting Parks Alive events there. And I’m still continuing the Darbo Council, so we’re going to be doing a number of different community engagement events this summer, and just kind of activating the neighborhood,” Green adds. “We will still be working with the Salvation Army, having a good continuation of programming for kids and families in the neighborhood.”
The young people in the Mentoring Positives are also still selling their Off The Block pizza and salsa, a longstanding fundraiser that raises money for MP programs while inspring youth through social entrepreneurship. On top of that, they operate Muriel’s Place on Madison’s East Side, a storefront where they serve delicious food, including Off the Block Pizza, on East Washington Ave.
“It’s always a struggle for small organizations like us. So this grant will really help us out. I think the pizza and salsa are one avenue that I wanted to really build to help alleviate us having to try to write grants all the time,” Green says. “So we’re really working to get the community to buy our products because the more products we get out the door, the more revenue we will have and the more kids we can bring in.”
Green has also been working on the marketing for Mentoring Positives, and recently started a podcast.
“I think marketing is a big thing for us today. We’ve been working with and partnering with Terrence Jackson and Up Next Marketing. He’s been doing my podcast, actually, and so he has been doing a lot of marketing and trying to bring a lot of awareness to our products and stuff,” Green says. “It’s been nice to get some more visibility, and way more people are starting to find out that we’re not just a mentoring program sitting here. We are a restaurant, and people can come in and get pizza.
“Getting a grant like this from the 100 Men of Dane County will help us get the word out to more people in the city, too,” he adds.
This is the second time that Mentoring Positives has gotten this grant from the 100 Men of Dane County. The first time happened in 2020 at the beginning of COVID.
“I remember when the pandemic started and I’m thinking, ’What the heck am I going to do now? How am I going to do this?’ Fortunately, we were able to keep the kids working in the kitchen because we were essential workers. We were able to continue to make products,” Green remembers. “The 100 Men were crucial coming in at that time to help us make it through … and here they are again at a time when we need them.
“We really appreciate them and all that they do.”
The 100 Men of Dane County will have two more quarterly grants this year for non-profits that support local children or women in Dane County. Find more information about applying for those here.
