Long before the National CARES Mentoring Movement was born, I understood this unshakable truth: Everything we need to secure our children and safeguard our future is in our hearts and hands.

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The caring and committed have always been our children’s protective shield.  I witnessed  that safety coming of age in Harlem—and over the decades I spent leading Essence and traveling to communities across our nation. And for the last 20 years, I have borne witness to it across the 58 U.S.-city CARES universe where our compassionate and devoted Affiliate leaders have recruited, trained, and connected  multitudes of volunteer mentors to under-resourced community schools, youth-support organizations and detention centers. More than 250,000 CARES volunteer mentors have signed up  and supported over 350,000 struggling children, helping them to shift their consciousness, stay strong and focused rather than losing ground. 

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Please stand with us, for our beloved children who bear wounds not of their making. Rather, they are predictable outcomes of generational poverty and enduring societal neglect. CARES exists to help heal those wounds. This is our work—the sacred labor of building partnerships and programs that mend what has been broken so our children can heal, learn, and thrive lifelong.

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No pain endured is greater than our collective moral resolve to provide healing and cure. Our history tells us so! Our foreparents living in harder and harsher times than these still envisioned and created triumphant paths for those not yet born. They showed us that victory is not only our past, but our identity, our destiny.