Being a Youth Impact Hub Mentor

The Youth IMPACT Hub Fellowship at United Roots is a year-long social enterprise incubation training program for low-income youth ages 18-24 to create enterprise projects that increase personal income and directly address problems in the communities. Ten Fellows are selected in a competitive application process, and paired with ten mentors from a variety of backgrounds.

Every Tuesday evening, we gather to share a meal, connect with ourselves and one another through mindfulness activities, and apply business curricula to progress the Fellows’ projects. These beautiful souls quickly have become like family to me.

And my mentee… Benjamín Gonzalez, my newest teacher! Ohmigosh, this guy truly is a superhero - running his family’s property maintenance company, being a devoted partner and father, and running an ever-growing successful screen-printing business.

I can’t wait to see how his project evolves. Ben and i will be working hard until Pitch Day in May. This is when the Fellows present their business plans to the public, and find out if they receive their $1,000 seed funding on the spot (otherwise it is contingent upon plan improvements). Stay tuned!