Lion’s Pride Mentoring is a nonprofit organization founded in 2019. The organization oversees our premier service, the Lion’s Pride Mentoring program, a peer mentoring program serving nine high schools across Chicago.

Participants of the program receive a number of benefits including skills development, field trips, and relationship building. Once students graduate from high school, they are eligible to apply for our internship program, a paid opportunity that takes place over the course of four months. We offer the opportunity three times a year to provide as many alumni with the internship experience as possible.

Students in 12th, 11th, and 9th grade are eligible to participate in the program. 10th-grade students are eligible in specific instances. For more information about student eligibility at your student’s school, reach out to the school program manager.

Each week, students will participate in goal setting, action planning, data tracking, tutoring, team building, and social-emotional development. Students will gain skills in a variety of career and personal development-related topics as part of our in-house social-emotional learning curriculum. Parents can see the entire scope of topics covered in our social-emotional learning curriculum here.

Mentors and mentees will have an opportunity to meet with all the mentors and mentees in the program at a meet-and-greet event. At the end of the event, students will share their top three preferences for their mentor or mentee. Lion’s Pride Mentoring staff then works to create each mentor-mentee pair, providing students with their top preferences when possible.

Yes, parents can sign up to receive our quarterly newsletter in addition to parent newsletters. We also encourage parents to reach out to the program manager if they have any questions about how their student is progressing in the program.

Over the course of the program’s existence, we have seen students increase their GPA and attendance rate, increase their sense of belonging and connection to their school, and students have express feeling supported during their transition to high school, building strong relationships with peers, and developing skills for school and careers. For more information on our program impact from last school year, check out our annual report on our website here.

The best way to contact the program staff is via email. We recommend contacting the program manager at your student’s school first before reaching out to our general email address.

BIGs are what we call our student mentors. Littles are what we call our student mentees. BIGs are 12th and 11th-grade students who have been trained as mentors using our in-house curriculum. Littles are ninth-grade students receiving mentoring in the program.