A Birth Story
There is, apparently, a certain pattern to the birth of mentoring programs if the Faithful Friends story is to be taken into account. Our story builds upon the stories of two other mentoring organizations. It’s a fellowship, a family, focusing on friendships designed to change the outcome of a child’s life.
1993-2003-2013
Friends of the Children, now a national mentoring program, humbly started right here in Portland in 1993 through the vision of Duncan Campbell. The story has been well documented in “The Art of Being There” and through numerous news outlets over the years.
Nearly a decade after the Friends program in Portland had been humming along, Duncan approached Door of Hope lead pastor Josh White with the prospect of starting a mentoring program for young children in the NE Portland community who would find their volunteers through area churches. For a different model from the paid, decade-plus commitment that Friends mentors agree to, Duncan and Josh turned to the Family of Friends Mentoring program started by Mike and Kris Forzley in 2003. Incidentally, Mike and Kris were also instrumental in helping start Friends of the Children.
With ministry models and funding firmly in place, Faithful Friends began officially on March 1, 2013. Originally called “Door of Hope Mentoring”, the name changed roughly a year later as Anna Clithero, a staff member at Door of Hope Church, took leadership while Kris Forzley helped with administration.
Faithful Friends origin story begins at 26:20 in the podcast interview above
In 2015, the team had offices at the Joshua House before Catholic Charities offered office space in 2016 at their McCoy Village property in NE Portland. The team changed and grew over the years to meet the needs of the constantly growing number of matches.
By 2018 there were roughly 40 ongoing matches, but that number grew to 72 active matches by the fall of 2019. The “forever friends” idea was created, thereby moving on some active matches to no longer being tracked.
East Side community meeting, 2018
Kris Forzley with Duncan Campbell, 2019
Faithful Friends staff at Bowl-a-Thon, April 2019
In the summer of 2019, the organization brought in an additional staff member to deal with the program load which had exceeded 70 active matches around the city of Portland, Gresham, and Beaverton.
Despite the difficulties that arose with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, mentoring numbers stayed consistent. Mentors and their mentees continued to develop their relationships and, once restrictions allowed, they continued meeting in ways they felt comfortable with.
By the end of this year Faithful Friends hopes to be actively overseeing more than 80 matches, a number that has doubled in the last 5 years. We aim to be partnering with 30 churches and will be continuing to search for mentors for the over 50 kids we have waiting to be matched. Hundreds of lives have been impacted in life-changing ways as we continue to press forward in our mission to cultivate mentor relationships that inspire growth, resilience, and hope.
-with editing from Emily Ker
