About

In 2012 we (Rick and Rebecca Newell) started the M.U.S.T. mentoring program. Our very first cohort was composed of five guys. One of those guys was named Michael. Michael was in the foster care system. When Michael started with the mentoring program he lived close to the Boys & Girls Club in Seattle where I (Rick) worked. However, he was eventually moved north of Everett (45 minutes north of Seattle) and then he was moved south of Tacoma (45 minutes south of Seattle). We quickly realized that foster care was its own thing and that we would need to figure it out further down the road with M.U.S.T.. Asking a college student to commute that far was too much to ask. It was also too much to ask of a college student to try to tackle the complex issues that foster care youth face. 

As time as gone on and we have learned more about the foster care system we feel that it does not fit well under the M.U.S.T. umbrella.  We feel it should be its own entity. You can click here to see some of the reasons why we feel it should be separate from M.U.S.T.. We plan to move forward in three main phases.

Phase #1: Raise funding for the investigative stage – July 2021 – December 2021.

Phase #2: Investigate the feasibility of the model – January 2022 – August 2022. 

Phase #3: If we feel like the model will be successful we would start to implement the model and raise money to support the first cohort – September 2022 – June 2023. Our first cohort would launch in July of 2023.