Seven unconventional founders started the Mentor Project based on a developmental psychology theory of youth mentoring. Skeptics called them weirdos, but within six months they grew from a handful of volunteers to over 100, including an astronaut and astrophysicists.
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And then we— people just said, you know, you guys are like 7 weirdos that are out there, you know, bringing Bill around and a couple of other people to mentor kids. No one is ever going to want to do this. So I was like, okay, so we'll have fun, no biggie. And then 6 months later, we went to 60, then to 80, then to 100 people who volunteered their time. And they were top leaders. We have an astronaut, we have astrophysicists, we have all of these really top people who were like, I want to volunteer my time. So the Mentor Project happened organically because, you know, a band of 7 weirdos decided to see if this theory that's in developmental psychology actually worked. And it does.