About
The Bridge is a Christian mentoring program.
Our mission is to empower Topeka children and youth to become servant leaders
through mutually transforming relationships.
Mission
Our vision is to meet kids and their families right where they are. We connect them with mentors during elementary school and follow them through high school graduation.
We dream of partnering with churches across the city to send volunteer mentors into every elementary school in Topeka.
Vision
The Bridge began in 2008 when a small local church decided to reach out and serve the community in central Topeka, Kansas. Three families moved into the neighborhood and started an after school program, serving eight students from Meadows Elementary. The vision was to start with a few kids in elementary school and follow them through high school graduation.
A few years later The Bridge began to collaborate with Topeka Young Life to mentor those students as they moved on to Robinson Middle School and Topeka High School.
In 2015 The Bridge launched the Lunch Buddies program, partnering with local churches to send over one hundred mentors into elementary schools across the city.
Recently, however, the leadership team has sensed a problem: some kids need more depth. The Bridge had grown wide, and was struggling to go deep. The kids facing the most obstacles in life are the hardest to reach with volunteer mentors, especially during a pandemic. Leaders began to dream of a new way to serve the most vulnerable children and their families.
Our History
In 2021 The Bridge implemented a new mentoring model designed to support the most vulnerable children and their families. The Life Buddies Mentoring Program matches children facing the most obstacles in life with a salaried, professional mentor. Mentors begin in kindergarten, and walk with each child through high school graduation, no matter what. Each mentor serves only eight children, working with each child every week on our strengths based curriculum--things like resilience, integrity, and belonging.