The Memphis Grizzlies Foundation donated more than $600,000 in grants this evening to organizations across the Mid-South that are focused on mentoring and youth development. The grants were presented during the Grizzlies vs. New Zealand Sky Sport Breakers preseason game at FedExForum.
This year’s distribution of grants brought the total giving by the Grizzlies Foundation to Mid-South non-profit organizations to $53.1 million since 2001. The Memphis Grizzlies Foundation is dedicated to harnessing the power of sport to transform lives, specifically focused on finding and funding youth mentoring and development programs to help young students better understand their potential.
Through the Grizzlies Foundation, MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies (MMG) strives to unite local community organizations and civic leaders to promote, support and advocate for youth mentoring while providing resources, leadership and training to support programs that support youth. Organizations receiving grants tonight are all MMG member organizations who demonstrate best practice mentoring by meeting the benchmarks outlined in the Elements of Effective Practice for Mentoring, MENTOR’s cornerstone publication that details its standards for creating and sustaining quality youth mentoring programs and ultimately enhancing their impact.
Each grant is uniquely designed in an effort to support organizations in select areas of their programs such as expansion of established programs to under-served areas, program enhancements for established quality mentoring programs, professional development for youth and mentoring practitioners and first-year implementation of new adult-to-youth mentoring programs. A list of MMG Members receiving grants is below:
ABOUT MENTOR MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES
MENTOR Memphis Grizzlies (MMG) is an affiliate of the MENTOR: National Mentoring Partnership, the unifying champion for expanding quality mentoring relationships in the United States. MMG serves as a clearinghouse for training, resources, awareness, and advocacy, providing the critical link between MENTOR’s national efforts and local organizations and programs that foster and support quality mentoring relationships.