Who We Are

We are committed to creating positive relationships through One-to-One Mentoring and instilling hope into those children's futures.

Provide each child the opportunity to benefit from a positive mentor relationship.

We have been a vital part of our community for fifty years. We were founded to serve a growing segment of our community in need of youth mentoring services. We have continued to grow with the help of our donors and volunteers that make our mission possible. Through all these years our purpose still remains the same: bring youth services to those in need.

Community Youth Mentoring started as V.I.A. Clubs of Erie County (Volunteers In Action) in 1968.  VIA Clubs provided mentoring to children in the community from 1968 until 1997 in which the board of directors affiliated with Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.  In May of 2017, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie-Seneca and Sandusky County Board of Directors made the decision to disaffiliate from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America due to the costly and surmounting affiliation dues. The board of directors felt it in the best interest of the agency to keep the funding in our community to assist the children in our programs.  As of  January 2018, Community Youth Mentoring has been providing services to the children in our community for 50 years.

Originally Big Brothers Big Sisters started out with traditional mentoring matching a Big Brother/Big Sister (Volunteer) to a Little Brother/Little Sister from age 6 to 18 years of age.  Local schools within Erie County approached BBBS in 2006 with a request  for mentoring within the local school district.  The BBBS School Buddy Mentoring Program kicked off in September of 2006 serving Sandusky City Schools, Perkins  Local Schools and Vermilion City Schools with mentoring provided to serve 100 kindergarten through sixth grade students.  Twelve years later, Community Youth Mentoring School Buddy Mentoring Program has expanded to serve five additional schools which brings us to eight schools within our Erie County school district.  

The impact of the Community Youth Mentoring School Buddies Program and Traditional Mentoring is reflected by the response and support we receive from the counties we serve.  The investment we put into the youth of Erie, Seneca and Sandusky County are the children of our communities of tomorrow.