PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA – The City of Long Beach is seeking a partner organization to facilitate a citywide mentoring program connecting Long Beach middle school students with City employees. The program will serve students from middle schools in neighborhoods affected by disproportionate amounts of violence, poverty and COVID-19 impacts.

“Our City employees play a big role in the development of our youth,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “The youth mentoring program will foster connections between experts across City departments and middle schoolers, with an emphasis on neighborhoods disproportionately affected by poverty, violence and the pandemic.”

This program will connect 100 Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) middle school students with 100 City of Long Beach employees. A workgroup consisting of representatives from City departments including Health and Human Services, Long Beach Public Library, Police, Parks, Recreation and Marine, and Economic Development’s Pacific Gateway Workforce Innovation Network helped develop the program’s framework. This program will take place in the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, and the number of mentoring connections for each school year may vary. The City is seeking to contract with a third-party mentoring organization to facilitate the program and mentoring connections.

The mentorship program is identified as an important piece of the Youth & Emerging Adults Strategic Plan to provide an opportunity to invest in young people.

“We are so excited to launch this program, which will allow City employees to support our next generation of leaders,” said Health and Human Services Department Director Kelly Colopy.

Specific details related to this Request for Proposal (RFP), including project scope, eligibility requirements, and submission instructions are available through Long Beach Buys.

The RFP was released on Sept. 30. There will be an optional pre-proposal meeting for interested organizations at 11 a.m. on Oct. 11. Questions regarding the RFP can be submitted to rfppurchasing@longbeach.gov by 11 a.m. on Oct. 14. The deadline for proposals is 11 a.m. on Oct. 28.

This program is made possible by the Long Beach Recovery Act , a plan to fund economic and public health initiatives for Long Beach residents, workers, and businesses critically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $4 million has been allocated to support violence prevention and safe cities. Additional information about the Long Beach Recovery Act is available at longbeach.gov/recovery.

The City’s youth mentoring program addresses the Youth & Emerging Adults Strategic Plan’s early implementations plan to explore mentorship best practices with the intent of collaborating on a future citywide mentorship program.

This program also aligns with Goal 4, Strategy 1 of Long Beach’s Racial and Reconciliation Initiative to strengthen mentorship programs, including the possibility to match volunteer City staff with community youth.