If you or your organization was unable to participate as a registrant or sponsor for this year’s A²MEND Annual Summit, it’s not too late to give to the organization. Your generous contribution will support A²MEND’s mission of fostering institutional change within the California’s community college system by increasing the success of Black male students.

To contribute a tax-deductible donation to A²MEND, please visit here.

A²MEND and the students that we serve know first-hand that mentorship matters. Despite the growth of our mentorship program, A²MEND’s leadership has remained concerned about the thousands of African American men enrolled in community colleges who have not been able to benefit from a mentor due to limited capacity to provide services on this scale.

To address this concern, A²MEND has partnered with MentorAndMatch.com to provide the technology infrastructure for the organization to scale the mentorship program. With this technology infrastructure, A²MEND has expanded the mentorship program and has set a goal to provide a mentor to every African American man enrolled in a California community college. 

Students will be matched with a mentor in our system based on similar educational and career interests. In addition, A²MEND will provide both mentor and mentee training that ensures that they receive maximum benefits for being a part of this game changing initiative.

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming an A²MEND mentor, please visit here.

The A²MEND Leadership Academy made quite an impact in their communities in January through their community service efforts. While the Academy continued their programs and even thrived throughout the pandemic, the only program that paused during this period was their community service program. To kick-off the program this year, the Academy’s student mentees planned two major community service efforts in Northern and Southern California.

To support Northern Californian communities with high homeless populations, the Academy’s student mentees from the College of the Sequoias, Consumnes River College, Evergreen Valley College, Merced College, and Solano Community College hosted “Coat Drives” on their campuses to collect donated coats. The mentees handed out the coats as well as sweaters and hoodies to the homeless in Downtown San Jose.

The Academy’s Southern California student mentees from Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Northridge, Pasadena City College, San Diego State, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara, and Whittier College met at Avalon Chapel in South L.A. to assemble hygiene kits. The free kits – which included beanies, gloves, socks, deodorant, soap, toothbrush/paste, sanitizer, shampoo and mouthwash – were handed out to homeless individuals in South Los Angeles.

To reward the student mentees for their community service work, the A²MEND Executive Board plans to treat them to tickets to San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Lakers games.

As A²MEND’s leadership prepares to host the A²MEND Annual Summit, the organization has registered nearly 1,300 attendees, the largest ever amount of individuals to register for the three-day event. The dynamic conference is being held at the Hyatt LAX in Los Angeles from March 1-3.

A²MEND has also received the highest total of sponsorships for the annual event, with RSSC serving as the event’s Title Sponsor. RSSC is headed by Dr. Regina Stanback Stroud, who spent more than 30 years as a community college leader.

A²MEND has organized the annual summit over the past 16 years to bring together statewide college educators and students aligned with the organization’s mission of supporting the higher educational goals of African American male students in California’s community college system.