The Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations, a nationally recognized program, serves as a resource to the development of nonprofit leadership and community development. The programs offered through the center provide a greater depth of understanding of a topic not only through substantive content grounded in the latest research, but also through application techniques and support that enables participants to apply their knowledge to make meaningful positive changes in their workplaces.
One of these signature initiatives is the Treu-Mart Youth Development Fellowship Program. Since its inception in 2004, more than 10,000 youths have benefited from the work of the fellows.
Treu-Mart Fellows are professionals who:
- See the strengths, resilience and gifts in young people
- Commit themselves to providing youths the support they need to thrive
- Work with middle-school students during out-of-school-time in the Greater Cleveland area
- Seek to continually learn and develop their own skills and talents
Renee Jones is one of almost 150 youth-service professionals who have benefited from the Treu-Mart Fellowship. Read her story:
Renee Jones, who founded a weekly empowerment program for homeless individuals in 1998, saw how meeting just one day a week made a powerful impact on people transitioning from public assistance into a mode of self sufficiency.
However, she wanted to do even more.
With the help of five partners and a group of dedicated volunteers, in 2002 that weekly program grew into the Renee Jones Empowerment Center, which continues to serve Greater Clevelanders in need.
With the empowerment center up and running, Jones focused on a new goal: the next generation. She created a young women’s conference to assist teens ages 14 to 19 in making better life choices. The conference included topics ranging from HIV and AIDS AIDS awareness to the importance of education, and human trafficking awareness and prevention to building healthy self-esteem. Fifty young women attended.
Jones is now working on a similar convention to help young men ages 14-22 strive for success.
“I have always been passionate about helping youths and working with their families to build a stronger family unit,” Jones explained.
Jones said the Treu-Mart Fellowship’s curriculum helped her “learn new techniques and programming ideas. The fellowship was inspirational to me because every session had a great facilitator, lots of information and resources that inspired me to strive even harder to make a positive, life-changing impact on the youths we serve.”