joining me is the organization's ceo kathy bella and chair of the board of directors tom kaiser. kathy, i want to start with you. >> thank you. >> why is mentoring so important? >> well, i think meantoring is important for both the mentes and our meantors. for us, we serve children who are really going through some very tough straits. most of our kids come from low-income families. about 90% of them come from single parent or guardian households. and a significant portion of them have an incarcerated parent. so they're living through very challenging times. they're living in tough neighborhoods often. and there are lots of just daily challenges in terms of navigating all of the intricacies of live. >> how many children do you serve? >> we serve 1,000 kids through the five county area. for our kids meant rg really makes a difference. we've seen it through the personal stories that are shared when we talk with our matches, we call them matches, as well as all of the metrics that we follow in term fz the impact that our program has had. it's a very simple program. our mentors spend