NewEnglandFilm.com

The Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation is a non-profit organization, formed in 2001 by singer/actor and Massachusetts native Mark Wahlberg. The primary mission of the Foundation is to raise and distribute funds for the benefit of youth enrichment programs, specifically those programs geared toward inner city children and teens. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised over one million dollars to aid such programs as those offered by the Boys & Girls Club of America.

It is only fitting then that in 2010, Mark Wahlberg was approached by the Taco Bell Foundation for Teens to become a spokesperson for their National Graduate to Go Program. The Taco Bell Foundation for Teens (TBFT), founded in 1995 as a non-profit public benefit corporation, concerns itself with reducing the number of high school dropouts by encouraging teens to stay in school and providing mentoring programs. The TBFT has raised over twenty-eight million dollars through customer, franchise, and employee donations. These donations have gone primarily to support teen programs at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and other such organizations.

The Graduate to Go Program raises awareness about the ongoing problem of high-school dropouts in the United States and focuses on helping teens not only to stay in school and earn their diploma, but to continue their education in hopes of attaining a better life.

“Our new partnership with Mark Wahlberg and his Foundation is a natural fit given our shared commitment to help teens graduate to a better life,” said Bob Fulmer, Executive Director of the Taco Bell Foundation for Teens in the press release announcing the joint venture. “Our goal through the Graduate to Go initiative is to reach 100,000 teens annually through real-world experiences and help cut the high school dropout rate in half by 2018.”

It has done this by providing funding toward job training and college preparation programs. The Program has also awarded over 350 grants and scholarships, allowing teens to no longer worry about how to pay for that elusive college education. Most recently, the Program has developed the Graduate to Go Studios, a mentoring program where teens use multi-media tools to share ideas and work to their potential.

The Studios include a year-round curriculum in music and film production with college-type projects allowing teens to learn the ins and outs of the particular field that interests them whether it be acting, music, or animation. The Studios program also includes field trips and job shadowing opportunities with local media professionals to show teens how dedication and hard work pays off the real world.

The Studios program was launched this past summer at the L.A. Harbor Boys & Girls Club in San Pedro, California. The L.A. program is only one of four Boys & Girls Club locations slated to host the Studios program across the country, and Boston is another.

The recording studio for the Boston Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester is already up and running and the ground breaking for the film studio occurred this past December. In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Mark Wahlberg discussed the Boston groundbreaking and described the Graduate to Go Studios program as “amazing”. It is a program where teens can “not only learn about being in front of the camera, but behind the camera. They have people to teach them and it’s an opportunity to go into a business that they find interesting.”

In order for teens to be eligible to participate in the program, they must be enrolled in school and maintain good grades. In this respect, the Studios program is a motivator for those struggling to maintain good grades by enticing these teens to take advantage of the offered support and tutoring from program mentors in hopes that they will be able to participate in the Studios program.

Wahlberg has not been shy in voicing his gratitude to the Boys & Girls Club. He credits his current success to the positive and nurturing environment he experienced at the Club during his youth. Despite being banned from the Club for a period of time while a teenager, Wahlberg has been able to make amends as an adult.

In fact, the Boys & Girls Club of America, in gratitude for his continued promotion and support of the organization, named Wahlberg to its Hall of fame. He is also listed as being on the Board of Directors of his hometown Club of Dorchester, MA. Wahlberg is proof of how, with positive support & encouragement and given the opportunity, one can turn one’s life around for the better.

With a world that gets smaller each day and opportunities that grow scarcer, the Boys & Girls Club provides teens with the support to finish High School and the encouragement to continue onto College and earn a degree. Thanks to programs such as the Graduate To Go Studios, offered in sponsorship by the Mark Wahlberg Foundation and The Taco Bell Foundation for Teens, teens are given the opportunity to not only dream of a better future, but the advantage of gaining solid experience toward and for the benefit of that future.