A mentorship program like no other

Club FBS was not supposed to happen.

In August 2022, Ronald Preston Clark moved from Chicago back to his hometown of San Diego to be the Dean of Students at Vista La Mesa Academy. He had the role he needed to live comfortably in San Diego. But in February 2023, Clark was notified that the position was not going to be available the following school year. 

After moving out of the classroom and into an administrative role for the first time, Clark did not want to return to the classroom or move into another role. So after discussions with the likes of Nate Howard, Jordan Jerome Harrison and Taryell Simmons, he gained the confidence to create something that he could do on his own.

One day while getting dressed for work, it hit him: an incentive-based book club and mentorship program. 

After witnessing one of his favorite students limping to class because his shoes were too small, Clark decided that his incentive would be centered around sneakers. Hence the name, Fitteds, Books & Sneakers. Students would receive a fitted hat, a pair of shoes and more books after completing the program and meeting certain criteria. 

Soon after its conception, Club FBS received its first major blessing in the San Diego Foundation providing them with an $80,000 grant in order to provide services for five schools: Bell Middle, Mann Middle, Millennial Tech Middle, Morse High School and Lincoln High School. 

Each program read four books throughout the school year. Our middle school Young Brothers read: Forged by Fire by Sharon Draper, Slam by Walter Dean Myers, Letters to a Young Brother by Hill Harper and Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant.

Our high school Young Brothers read: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, Cry Like A Man by Jason Wilson, Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and The Will To Change by bell hooks.

Social-emotional learning themes, literary devices and guest speakers were featured throughout the school year with discussions around subject matter derived from the books occurring regularly.

We held two off-campus events this year. For 14 of our middle schoolers, they attended a Bowling w/ Mentors Event where 10 Black male mentors joined us for an afternoon of fun, food, fellowship, bowling and mentoring. We learned that day from one Young Brother that Club FBS had “ignited his blackness.” Video of this day is available here.

For seven of our high schoolers, we had a Mentor Dinner at Lemon Grove Bistro. This will be a signature event of Club FBS moving forward. The beauty of this event is that we paired each of our Young Brothers with a Black male mentor who is already successful in the career/major that they want to pursue. The professions present were: Medicine, Law, Psychology, Computer Science and Education. Mentorships were jumpstarted and a further understanding of who we are as a program was established. The Young Brothers witnessed the power of having access to Clark’s network and the contacts available to them. They also were able to hear from the mayor of Lemon Grove, Raquel Vasquez, who happened to be dining at the same restaurant and asked if she could speak to our Young Brothers. Video of this day is available here and here.

We learned a lot during our first year. We had ideations about what this program would be but had to allow for the program to become what it needed. We had goals of focusing primarily on the improvement of the literary abilities of our Young Brothers. And even though each Young Brother completed their reading of four books, the mentorship, advisory, empowerment, grade support, behavioral support, and providing a support system became more significant, particularly with our middle schoolers. Our liaisons and administrators at our middle schools treated us as extended staff, ready to support our middle school Young Brothers with whatever was necessary.

Our high schoolers improved from semester to semester with their grades and read the books with no issues, so their program became a networking, mentoring and social-emotional learning space.

With the books as the central piece of the academics, alongside some of our lessons on literary devices and discussions, we became a safe space for our Young Brothers. Clark was contacted by Bell MS, Mann MS and Millennial Tech MS to discuss Young Brothers, visit the school to speak to Young Brothers or simply show up during lunch time to support Young Brothers during their school day.

"FBS embodies community," said Minh-Nguyet Pham, a counselor at Bell Middle School and the campus liaison for Club FBS. "[Mr. Clark] loves his community, loves our youth and loves the work he does. It is exhibited in the way he shows up for our youth. I've watched over the school year, as our young men have created such a unique and special bond with Mr. Clark."

"Club FBS provides a safe space for male students to be authentic and unapologetic about being Black," said Dr. Precious Jackson-Hubbard, principal at Bell. "There is a healthy balance of academic rigor, fellowship and character building. Students feel seen, heard, loved, and accepted when engaging with Club FBS mentors and brothers."

Our high school Young Brothers are the reason for some of our biggest changes going into 2024-25. Due to sports, clubs, activities, jobs and other responsibilities, our numbers were spotty and inconsistent, leaving us with three Young Brothers at Morse and six Young Brothers at Lincoln. Because of this, and after speaking with the Young Brothers themselves, we moved our high school program to Saturday mornings from 10 am to 12 pm at the University of San Diego beginning on September 14th. Club FBS has developed a partnership as a brother program to the Black InGenius Initiative at USD, as two scholars in the first cohort of BiGI are also Young Brothers in Club FBS. The partnership was inevitable.

Also, due to the time and location change, we are not hosting the program directly on high school campuses anymore. Instead, we have opened up registration for the program to all Black male students in San Diego County who would like to participate. The University of San Diego will host and we will have 17 scheduled meetings.

As of May 14, 2024, Club FBS is a San Diego Unified School District approved program and will have programs on our current four middle school campuses (Bell, Mann, MTM, Logan Memorial) with the addition of one more heading into the 2024-25 school year.

We are grateful for the continual support from our school, partners, San Diego Foundation, Pamela Gray Payton and our awesome, amazing, intelligent, curious, bold Young Brothers. Here’s to another wonderful school year!