Keylatch Mentoring
Staff Contact Information:
Tati Burgos
tatiana@pbha.org
Student Director Contact Information:
PBHA’s Keylatch Mentoring fosters one-on-one relationships between college-age mentors and middle school students living in Boston's South End. Mentors broaden children’s access to academic help and enriching resources throughout Boston, supporting their mentees as they navigate adolescence and begin to make important academic and personal life choices.Mentors and mentees meet each week for individual outings throughout the Boston area, allowing each pair to develop a meaningful relationship and to engage in activities specific to the development of each young person. Several times throughout the semester, all Keylatch Mentoring participants come together for group outings to build relationships throughout the Keylatch community.
History of Keylatch
The Keylatch Program began in 1982 as an afterschool tutoring program for children in the Villa Victoria Housing Development, a mainly Latino community in the South End of Boston. Within two years, the Keylatch Program received requests from parents and the community leaders to expand the program through the summer. Thus, the Keylatch Summer Program was started in 1984 as an educational and recreational program that would complement the afterschool program. Remi Cruz and Vicky Rivera, hired a small staff of counselors and became the program’s first directors. The group then followed PBHA tradition by moving into the community to better understand and respond the needs of its families. In 1989, the program expanded to include the children of the nearby Tent City Development, made up of mainly African Americans. Today, the afterschool program, summer program, and mentoring program serve children of the South End and Lower Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston.