Giovanni & Tim's YMC Story

"Only the guidance from a mentor could make a fifty pound weight lost goal turn into a result of losing one hundred and twenty pounds in just a two year period. The gratitude that I have for my mentor Tim Windgard continues to exceed new heights as I continue to relies how much he has truly change my life. This Malibu local saw me, a twelve year old, two hundred and eighty pound African American male growing up in south central that had no academic motivation for education, no self-esteem because of obesity. This individual had no desire to be different than the troubling drop out students, gang bangers and poor role models that were all to familiar. My mentor Tim saw this young individual and told himself that he needs to contact Youth Mentoring Connection so he can invest time into this young man’s life because he’s going to be successful some day.

Some might say such events as losing as much as one hundred and twenty pounds, becoming a great African American surfer and turning my whole general perspective on school around is much to have accomplished before and during high school. I say it’s just the beginning. The beginning of a developing mentality to not just be the best, but set the bar with my own personal best. A personal, persistent mentality in hunger of new opportunities to challenge myself and improve. This mentality continues to develop because I still haven’t reached the pinnacles I plan to reach. This lead me to be on the search for the door to the new opportunity that will mold me into a better, brighter and more persistent young scholar.

In Youth Mentoring Connection giving me a mentor or what I see him as, the father figure I never had, he paved the we for today and myself successfully finishing my freshmen year of college with a 3.3 GPA. I plan to continue my education at Loyola Marymount University and majoring in business administration, political science, and minoring in environmental justice. I will continue doing various internships and jobs that are guided toward my major during undergraduate. Following that, I plan to continue my education in graduate school at Stanford University and at the same time start generating profit for the company I am in the process of starting with a Stanford Graduate Chemist and few students from UCLA. We are developing a water conservation company that will innovate the waste management industry. After that, I will run for Speaker of the Assembly for the State of California. Then I will run for Governor of California. Following that I will run for President of the United States. After that I plan on opening up a non-profit that reflects the same core values as Youth Mentoring Connection. I want to continue YMC’s mission to help connect more individuals to invest their valuable time into young inner city kids most say will be nothing in life. Similar to what most people said about me at a first glance. YMC connected me with my mentor and proved the nay sayers wrong. I want to help save lives just as YMC did with mine.

In the summer of 2011 the Metlife Foundation and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging(N4A) flew my mentor Tim and I out to Washington, DC for a Older Volunteers Enrich America Awards reception were Tim’s received a national honor. He received the Silver Honor for the national Mentoring Award. Part of the event article reads, “Tim Wingard, 69, has been a volunteer at the Youth Mentoring Connection (YMC) for seven years.YMC awakens at-risk youth to their power, unique gifts and purpose by matching them with caring adult mentors. Tim, who still surfs, volunteers his time for the surf program and brought his mentee, Giovanni (Gio), surfing on weekends. At 13, Gio weighed 285 pounds and was struggling in most areas of his life in South Central L.A. Tim taught Gio how to eat healthfully, to surf and to be a proud, responsible man. As a result of Tim’s mentoring, Gio lost 120 pounds. Gio is now president of his high school’s debate team, an honor student, surfer and basketball player who has been accepted to several universities. Tim and Gio remain extremely close five years after first meeting.” Youth Mentoring Connection first changes lives of the mentee, then changes lives through the relationship with the mentor and the end result is that YMC enriches both lives."