Marcus Allen is, in many ways, the embodiment of the word “big.” He is most noticeably big in stature: At 6’7” tall, he has played basketball for Paine College and professionally in Europe, Israel and South America. He is big in his career: Not only is he the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) Independence Region — the oldest Big Brothers Big Sisters program and currently the third biggest agency in the nation — but he is also the first Black CEO in the agency’s over 100-year history.

And, he is quite literally a “Big” through the BBBS program (which calls its mentors Bigs and its mentees Littles). “We do amazing things together and we just share friendship… We teach each other. It’s a symbiotic relationship,” Allan gushes. Last, but not least, Allen also has many big ideas. “I am one of those people that, when I hear problems, I automatically think ‘what are the solutions to that?’” he says, “And then I go further: ‘What can I do about it?’”

In the last few years, Allen has been hearing about one specific problem over and over again. Across the country, fourth and eighth-grade students have experienced unprecedented drops in math and reading scores due to the pandemic. In Philadelphia, Covid also exacerbated how frequently students experience gun violence. Though violence this year is down about 40 percent, 2021 was a record-breaking year for gun violence in Philadelphia. Non-profit newsroom The Trace analyzed research from the Gun Violence Archive and determined that, from 2014 through 2023, Philadelphia accounted for 50 percent of the American schools with the most nearby shootings.

“You never tell kids what they can’t do. As long as the kid has that fire, we should be feeding that. Our Bigs don’t create potential, we create space for that potential to flourish.” — Marcus Allen

“Our education system is falling behind … and there’s nowhere [that trauma is] more prevalent than in the communities we serve — which are Black and Brown, with a socio-economic status of being below the poverty line,” Allen says.

To find a way to help Philly students, Allen looked to Atlanta, and to his own mentee for the last five years — Kwame Johnson, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta. Three years ago, Johnson launched a BBBS program inside Atlanta public schools, providing mentors for hundreds of middle schoolers across three schools. The results have been impressive: significantly decreased truancy, higher grades, fewer behavioral problems, better self-confidence.

“You know what?” Allen said when he saw the results, “We need that in Philadelphia.” This fall, he’s doing just that.

“We create space for potential to flourish.”

In 1915, Charles Edwin Fox, an Assistant District Attorney, founded Big Brothers Big Sisters (initially called The Big Brother Association) in Philadelphia. Fox created the program to help fatherless young boys receive positive influence and guidance from male adults. The program served 173 boys in its first year. Sixty years later, in 1975, Big Brothers of Chester County began providing mentoring services to girls as well, and changed its name to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Currently, BBBS Independence Region — which serves Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Philadelphia, Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties — is the third largest affiliate in the network of over 330 agencies. Our Independence Region has served over 125,000 children over the last century, and currently serves around 1,700 children. [Author’s note: I have been a Big for the past year, though I am unaffiliated with the new in-school program.]

Marcus Allen has served as CEO of BBBS Independence Region since 2013. Now 52, Allen first experienced the benefits of mentorship at a young age. Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, his mom was a single parent who often struggled to make ends meet. As a child, he was told by a doctor that he needed a surgery on his leg or he would “never walk properly or play sports.” Because his mom was homeless at the time and did not have health insurance, he was unable to get that surgery.

“Our goal is for them to graduate from high school with a plan for their future, and have a mentor whose impact lasts a lifetime.” — Marcus Allen

Still, despite the doctor’s premonition, he went out for the football team when he was 12 years old. While many did not believe he could effectively play, one man did believe in him. Willy Williams, a Black police officer and the assistant coach of the team, was Allen’s biggest fan. “He said, Son, you can play as good as anybody out there… you’re coachable. That’s going to take you places in life,” Allen remembers. “That’s nothing profound, but him saying it and him believing in me, I [remember] this 40 years later. I’d like to think that’s part of the reason I’m sitting here today.”

Allen went on to become a collegiate and professional athlete. And, just as he remembers that Williams believed in him, he also remembers the words of that doctor. He knows the doctor meant no harm, but being told early on that he could “never” do something was a mental and physical obstacle he had to work to overcome. “You never tell [kids] what they can’t do,” Allen says. “As long as the kid has that fire, we should be feeding that. Our Bigs don’t create potential, we create space for that potential to flourish.”

The impact of having a mentor in your life can be staggering. In 1995, Public/Private Ventures, an independent Philadelphia-based national research organization, studied over 950 Littles from eight BBBS agencies across the country. Their research found that, after 18 months in the program, Littles were:

• • 52 percent less likely to skip school
  • 46 percent less likely to begin using drugs
  • 37 percent less likely to skip a class compared to children not in the program

This study was replicated in 2008 and released in 2023, finding similar results.

For Allen, it’s important to note that first study was done almost 30 years ago, and the program has only improved since then. “We have higher standards today. We have more elements in our program today. So it gives me a lot of optimism and hope that, if we can find the resources to expand this [BBBS into public schools], imagine how this could change our city,” Allen says. “Truancy starts in middle school. By the time a kid gets to high school, they’re already making a decision if they’re going to stay in school or not. So let’s intervene right there in their middle years and make sure that they have a mentor.”

Leveling Up in Atlanta

Several years ago, Kwame Johnson also saw problems in Atlanta’s public schools. And, just like Allen, he wanted to be a part of the solution. “How do we help kids trust adults? And how do we help adults be there for kids and listen to them? And help kids to feel like someone cares about them beyond their performance in the classroom?” Johnson and his team wondered, according to Allen. After meditating on these questions, Johnson came up with an in-school mentoring program called Level Up.

Now entering its third year, Level Up is a large-scale mentoring program that places paid mentors in middle schools full-time. The program started at three middle schools, serving 100 students in each grade through a combination of 1:1 and small group mentorship. Mentors are hired by BBBS and the school district, and people with lived experience — people of color, people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and people who grew up in the same neighborhoods that the schools are in — are prioritized.

The results so far have been impressive. Over the 2022-2023 school year, surveys show that, of the students with mentors:

• • 99 percent of students avoided the juvenile justice system
  • 84 percent of students had reduced or no discipline events
  • 87 percent of students had consistent or increased feelings of school connectedness
  • 82 percent of students had decreased or no depressive symptoms
  • 94 percent of students say they had a trusted adult in their lives

The program expanded to five schools last year, and aims to expand to nine schools within the next five years.

Helping kids dream big

For the most part, Philadelphia’s program (which they are tentatively calling Power Up) will be modeled off of its Atlanta predecessor. Power Up’s curriculum, which is age and grade-appropriate, has been updated by the school district to reflect the wants and needs of Philadelphia’s schools. Mentees will receive 2 to 3 hours of mentorship in school each week outside of the classroom; in each session, mentors will give lessons on topics such as financial literacy, decision-making skills and future design thinking. They will provide homework help and tutoring. And they will facilitate activities designed to build confidence and social/emotional learning.

When it launches in September, Power Up will serve 100 students in sixth grade across three middle schools. If there are more than 100 students in the grade, the school will make suggestions of which students they think would benefit most from the program. Parents will receive information about the program from the school and, if they do not want their child to partake, they can choose to opt out of the mentorship.

So far BBBS has hired 10 people for the roles: two mentors and one supervisor at each of the three schools, and one director to oversee the program. Allen looked specifically for people with teaching experience, who “understand the school environment and have a vision or a desire for the school environment to change,” and who have come from “similar circumstances” as the children. He also sought out people who are passionate about children, flexible and open to dealing with students differently than they’ve been dealt with before.

“Students need folks who are going to share hope, because sometimes they don’t get hope. They don’t receive hope lessons.” — Monique Braxton, School District of Philadelphia

“We’re not there to do [things] for the child. The child is going to do [things] for themself, but sometimes that child needs a little bit of guidance,” he explains.

Mentors will work full time throughout the school year, and will each have 50 mentees (10 students with a one-on-one relationship with that mentor, and the remaining 40 in small groups of five). Mentors, who do not need a college degree, will be paid a salary of $45,000 for the school year, and are expected to make a two- to three-year commitment.

“You can’t come on board and then leave,” Allen says. ”That disrupts the kids’ relationships. It’s all about making sure that we bring consistency to kids.”

There will also be several ways Philadelphia’s program differs from that in Atlanta. “[I want to] make sure we address what the community and others have told us are the biggest challenges facing our kids,” Allen says. These challenges include anxiety and depression, confusion about the future, having to grow up too fast, and transitioning from middle school to high school.

The biggest challenge, though, is the students’ experience with gun violence. To address this specifically, BBBS is collaborating with several nonprofits that do training around trauma- informed care. They are also picking the schools that will pilot this program deliberately, by focusing on schools in high gun violence neighborhoods. The program will debut this upcoming school year at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Lawncrest, John Barry Elementary School in Haddington, and Feltonville School of Arts & Sciences in Juniata Park.

In its first year, Power Up will be primarily funded with community project funding from the federal government. Allen was able to secure this federal funding by appealing directly to Senator John Fetterman. Fetterman and his wife have both been Bigs through BBBS. “He helped his Little to go to college and graduate from college, and now [the Little’s] working and pretty successful, and he’s still in his life,” Allen says of the senator.

Allen and his team have also been working closely with the Philadelphia School District’s Office of Strategic Partnerships. “In the annual Student Needs Programming Assessment that’s done by the District, mentoring was one of the most commonly reported needs from school leaders,” says Monique Braxton, the District’s deputy chief of communications. Braxton says the Power Up program is a way to further the efforts the District has already put in place to help students facing trauma who need additional support outside the classroom.

“Mentoring provides [an] opportunity for children to dream big and see that [they have] a person who cares about them, that hears them, that understands them. We want to have as much support as we can,” she says. “They need folks who are going to share hope, because sometimes they don’t get hope. They don’t receive hope lessons.”

Allen knows from his own experience as both a mentee and a mentor how powerful a force a good mentor can be on someone’s life trajectory. “Ultimately, kids who don’t have mentors, they’re going to find a mentor and it’s probably going to be a mentor you don’t want them to have, maybe a drug dealer,” Allen says. While it’s starting with just three schools this fall, Allen dreams that Power Up will one day exist in every middle school in Philadelphia.

“We are building an environment around the kids that makes them feel celebrated every day, while also giving them access to a mentor who’s there every day with them when they go to school,” Allen says. “Our goal is for them to graduate from high school with a plan for their future, and have a mentor whose impact lasts a lifetime.”

Corrections: A previous version of this post misnamed the region’s Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

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