Welcome

Our years of experience working with teenage boys have taught us that the middle school years are an important time in a boy’s development. This is when a boy makes choices that shape the man he will become. This is an especially critical window of time for boys without fathers. With no male role models to guide them, middle school is when boys start to lose their way, start to get in trouble, and often fall through the cracks of the educational system and land in the prison system.  

  Choices Youth Outreach International is a community-based mentoring model serving middle and high school boys identified by school administration to be at-risk of dropping out of school, juvenile delinquency or gang involvement. Our goal is to go into schools and communities to provide these fatherless boys the male role models they are missing. Not just one man, but a community of mentors and peers who offer the hope, support and guidance boys require in the critical window. This is where choices can make an impact in their lives that will last a lifetime.    

  Our community-based and solution focused approach gives boys a safe place to get real and talk about the problems all teenage boys keep inside, and a community where boys know they are NOT ALONE in their feelings. Fears, sadness, successes, hopes, anger, and gratitude are often revealed. We ask guys to raise a hand when someone shares something they can identify with. There’s a comfort in seeing other’s hands go up.     

  Over the years we have also learned that by exposing youth to new experiences it could create a passion that can change their perception on life which can foster new hopes and new dreams. When their perception is changed their attitude and behavior also changes allowing them to focus on the positive and seek to do better in life. In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., "A mind that is stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions".  At Choices we are exposing our members to cultural activities like going to museums, live plays, poetry readings, musicals, ballet and art galleries. As well as taking them to professional and college sporting events (basketball, football, baseball, volleyball, track and field, swimming ect.) and tours of college campuses which will also nurture and enhance ambition.   

  We also have found that when seeking to build and strengthen character, giving back work wonders. Members of Choices will be involved in fund raisers for ourselves as well as organizations like juvenile diabetes, children hospitals and much more. Food drives, community picnics and back to school supply drives are activities that are a part of the requirements for Choices members.     

  Choices members will also be involved in activities that promote good health and nutrition. They will also be involved with fun activities that will help provide some balance in their lives, like bowling, skating, three on three basketball tournaments and camping just to name a few.     

   Being confident that they have a great chance to further their education can provide the youth with a willingness to do well in high school so that they can go on to college. So Choices will be working with foundations, corporations, colleges, universities, government programs and others to develop a scholarship fund that will help provide the at risk youth with a chance to move beyond high school, go on to college and become community leaders.