From Videotelephony to Online Mentoring
How Rewritten Leverages Today’s Tech to Reach the Fatherless and Underserved
Well before the very first video conference in 1927–called “videotelephony”--by Bell Labs and future president Herbert Hoover, the ideas of the telegraph, telephone, video, television, and especially live video communication, have fascinated people. From those early beginnings until today, communicating by and watching video have become very ordinary experiences in society, just as they are here at Rewritten. It’s common nowadays to use online tools such as Zoom, FaceTime, GoogleMeet, or Teams. Many people don’t have any problem going about their days or weeks having one or many virtual meetings, especially since the worldwide pandemic of 2019-2021, when most public, private, large, and small organizations, as well as many individuals, faced closing their doors or pivoting to virtual/online meetings on a regular basis in order to accomplish the goals of the moment.
Herbert Hoover and Bell Labs made the historic first video transmission, April 7, 1927 (Wikimedia Commons)
Along with the world, Rewritten staff learned to use online programs we’d rarely or never used before in order to continue serving the fatherless and underserved young people we exist to help. As with most of society, it wasn’t exactly a choice–it felt more like a necessity in order to “sink or swim” to complete the work at hand. As a nonprofit organization, we experienced the same challenges, limitations, and regrouping that so many others did in trying to continue serving those we could, differently, but still serving. Out of that situation, we developed a broader new initiative to reach out to a different population for us, college students, along with continuing to meet needs of existing participants and their families.
Nowadays, we’re no longer in the pandemic, yet the virtual world seems to continue to be very alive and populated. We can often see people in person rather than online. Still something has changed–organizations and individuals are choosing virtual life more than before. However, even after all of the hours many have logged online at this point, we still regularly hear people say that the virtual world is not as real, valid, effective, or useful as the world of meeting in person, face to face, and in the same space. At Rewritten, we see that it’s not the same as before, but we’ve experienced firsthand how virtual technology allows us to reach young people in important ways. We thought hard about how to keep serving our young people within the ever-changing parameters of pandemic life. Our participants were not coming through our doors after school like they had before because school was on a computer at their homes, and social distancing was mandated. How could we help in these difficult times? We prayed, we thought, and God gave us some new ideas!
Out of this circumstance was launched our Rewritten Mentoring and Scholarship Program, an online guidance and scholarship program for college students around the country who come from fatherless and underserved backgrounds. We wanted to do something that would make a real impact on fatherless young people as we’ve always had a mission to do. It turned out that offering a virtual program was something that could meet the needs of a population that was heading out into the world soon but who had not had all of the advantages of a stable, two-parent home life. This program was designed to support their spiritual growth, their personal development, and their educational goals. We’re just beginning our fourth year with our fourth group of participants this fall, and the program has continued to grow each year. We’re looking forward to seeing how God uses it in the future. The world we live in has made room for both in-person and virtual contact, and our prayers and hopes are that by God’s grace we can continue to leverage both in order to reach these kids where they are.
Throughout the pandemic, we served in other ways as well. We increased our staff and opened our doors to our present participants, using safety guidelines as required, in order to provide a remote learning location where they could complete their distance learning classes through their existing schools. Also, our food and supply pantry was open for families who struggled with food insecurity and paying for basic necessities. We regularly had parents coming in to “shop” by appointment in the pantry, and they were thankful for the assistance in those hard days. In addition, we stayed in touch with our current and former regular participants to do tutoring and mentoring online. Even though the world was “shut down,” their lives, their pain, and their struggles did not shut down, so we worked to meet them where they were using the means we had available.
Despite this significant online work and service along with our regular in-person contact with participants, we still regularly have people ask us if this type of virtual work is truly “real” or “valid,” or effective. Four years in, we can say, yes, along with our face-to-face service with young people, the online contacts truly can be leveraged to help meet the needs of young people in various types of situations who struggle with all of the same things as our local kids do due to the brokenness in their homes, the loss of their fathers, and the struggles within their families. It’s true–everything isn’t just the same as it used to be, the world looks kind of different now, and both the virtual world and the in-person one are here to stay for the time being. We recognize the difference, but we see opportunities and successes in both. Getting to know and mentor young people from around the country, helping local young people in person and online if they don’t have transportation to visit our center regularly nowadays, and continuing to reach out to former after-school participants who are now perhaps out of school but not done growing up, have been deeply meaningful. It may sometimes be virtual, but it’s all real.
If you’re a young person reading this who is in need of mentoring or educational support, you may be happy to find out that this can be done online as well as in person. Please feel free to reach out to us, so we can see how we may be able to help you. We see you, we pray for you, and we want God’s blessings and peace for your life.