I love coming up with outlandish “opening questions” for group settings or long car rides.  Discussion starters, if you will.  So, today’s question…

Someone has gifted you $50,000 to give to someone else, who would you give it to and why?

Most of these questions I ask are obviously make-believe scenarios.  However, with the above question, you and I, and all those we recruit have the opportunity to gift teens in America who stand waiting for someone to mentor them.

If I heard the story correctly, last year Pepsi opted out of paying millions upon millions for advertising during the SuperBowl instead opting to create a funding program for non-profits and businesses with creative ideas to “refresh everything.”  Good work Pepsi.

The National Network of Youth Ministries (NNYM) is vying for one of these grants through Pepsi.  Specifically they are looking for funds for their, “MentorYouth” program.  Today, we have 4 Million more youth looking for a mentor than we have mentors.  As Americans our cry is often, “what is happening with the youth today?” Well, perhaps our youth are actually saying, “I wish I had an adult loving and helping me today?”

I realize that I am probably preaching to the choir, in that if you’re reading this post, you most likely already do care deeply about teens.  I’m asking you to care a little bit more and little bit differently over the next 10-11 days.

$50,000 of FREE money, you can help give it away!

Each day you can vote three times for the MentorYouth idea.

Vote Online: Click Here (and for you to copy/paste the url if forwarding this: http://www.refresheverything.com/find-mentors)

Vote by Text:  102430 to Pepsi (73774)

Vote by Facebook: Click Here (and for you to copy/paste:  http://apps.facebook.com/pepsirefresh/idea/set?auth_token=c45e864e6f94e0d2d7cd180ea214734b)

Please note that with the online option you’ll click “vote for this idea” and then it’ll take you to a sign-in page (with word verification) and then back to the “vote for this idea” page.  Make sure you actually click “vote” because the first time ONLY took you to the sign in page, it did not register a vote (you’ll actually get a confirmation on the page and your remaining votes number will change).

HERE IS THE REAL CHALLENGE!!!

With only 11 days remaining (from the time I wrote this), it is ESSENTIAL that you’re not the only one voting.  Here are some idea I’d like to give you to get this MentorYouth idea up into the top 10 (currently ranked 168, top 10 ideas get the funds).

1. Get your youth group to text in a vote EACH day. Text your entire group each day for the next 11 days.  Say something like, “text 102430 to 73774 to help get 50k to teen mentors” (an initial text/email/fb message will be helpful to explain the idea).
2. Get your Facebook friends to vote via Facebook. In your status update you can give the link and an update like, “teens nationwide can use mentors, your vote each day will help get 50k! (insert url link)”
3. Get you church to go online and vote. Send an email, perhaps copying instructions from this blog post to church members and see if they’ll vote as well.
4. SYATP Viral Campaign.  Have a student on Wednesday (at SYATP) get everyone at the flagpole (before or after prayer) to get everyone to pull out their phones and text 102430 to 73774.
5. Teens are the best voters! Get your teens to believe in this cause.  If you can get your students to get the word out, especially through texting and facebook, we may see the rankings shoot up quickly!
6. Blog: If you’re a blogger, either link to my blog, or create your own post with this information.  Let’s get the word out and see the rankings go up!

This will literally take you 2-3 minutes today and 1-2 minutes each day over the next 11 and we could see 50k come through!

Last Note: NNYM is a great organization that has been around for 30 years, in no way am I being compensated for this effort.  I simply believe in NNYM and want to help in any way I can.  In an economy like this, funding like this can be HUGE.  I am praying God is glorified in our efforts to raise awareness that teens need mentors, regardless of whether they get the 50k!

Grace,
Brian

P.S. If you do nothing else… will you vote one of these three ways right now, please!