FHL

Another way that I've put down roots in Charlotte is by getting involved in Faith, Hope & Love, a mentoring program for inner city kids from really rough homes and bad neighborhoods. I mentored with FHL five years before leaving for Ukraine. I loved that program and investing in the lives of those children. I went twice a week then, plus I'd go have lunch at my kid's schools, and do other activities with them. FHL had gotten pretty large and was taken over by another organization, which then decided that the mentoring program wasn't as important as their sport's program, so they did away with it in 2008. The church that originally started the program decided to start it up again, and are now partnering with a private Christian school for needy kids, called Brookstone School. Brookstone collects 7% of its income in tuition from the students and the rest is in grants, gifts, and fund raising from the local community. http://www.brookstoneschools.org/

I started back mentoring at FHL in September and was super excited to do so. I go once a week for an hour and do homework with a forth grader named Zariah. I've also started going to have lunch with Zariah at school every other week, which is something she loves. Today was "Day of the Nations" at Brookstone and all of the classes prepared presentations and foods from different countries. It was lots of fun to see all of the costumes and hear the songs and other things that the kids had prepared. It was also fun to surprise Zariah and see her face light up when she spotted me in the audience. The video is the one song that all of the grades sang together.

With Zariah in her classroom