MIDLAND, Texas — Rope Youth stopped by Ralph Bunche Elementary School for their Young Gentlemen's League program during lunch Friday.
There is also a Young Women's League.
The programs get volunteers from the community to come out and help teach kids about practical lessons that will help them later on in life.
“Kids need to start knowing, like 'hey, there are caring adults out there,' and all of this is about relationships," said Executive Director of Rope Youth Karl Boroski. "These volunteers come in and build relationships with these kids... People that can encourage them and teach them lessons that will be useful to them for a long time.”
Lessons they might learn can be stuff like how to jumpstart a car, financial literacy, what it means to do community service and how to change a tire.
The school has had the program at the campus for about 8 months now, and they feel it’s been a good thing for the students.
“It’s really made a progressive impact on our students here," said counselor at Ralph Bunche Elementary Mary Griffin. "With all the wonderful things we have going on, we’re so glad that our kids are given the opportunity to be prepared to be great gentlemen and great women, and Karl has done a great job with our kiddos, preparing them for success, not only academically, but socially and economically. Which is very beneficial to our youth.”
In the Young Gentlemen's League, the boys are even given suits that they are taught how to maintain and are responsible to keep doing so themselves as part of their lessons.
The school has said that the program isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.