The Return Rate That Matters

In 2003, Marcus Meneese’s mother asked him to mentor a cousin who had just lost his mother and had no father in the picture. Marcus asked how. “Just teach him everything your dad taught you,” she said.

Marcus still has that great dad. In 2013, he turned that inheritance into Stronger Than My Father, a Nashville ministry for young men growing up without a father at home. His goal is blunt: keep them out of juvenile detention and give them at least 80 percent of the tools a dad would.

The model is hands-on. Saturday sessions twice a month teach career, leadership, and life skills. In-school mentorship grew from one Nashville middle school in 2024 to six schools across Nashville and Franklin this fall.

Your $5,000 RetailROI grant in 2025 funded the Stronger Sons Mentorship Program, which served more than 60 young men through weekly sessions at West End Middle School and Saturday mentoring. That works out to about $83 per young man. The grant paid for leadership workshops, career exposure, and a weekend mini-camp, plus the unglamorous costs that keep boys coming back: monthly lunches, Saturday breakfasts and pizza, field-trip meals, van fuel, and Christmas gifts. Pizza alone runs $125 to $150 a session. “These boys can eat,” Marcus says.

KJ’s father walked out on the family. KJ joined in fourth grade; now a ninth grader, he says Marcus acts like his father. Marcus started showing up at his football games, and now other mentors do too.

Volunteers multiply that presence in the ordinary interactions. Mentor Bob Lyons showed boys how to change a tire and the oil; Nathan McDougal led a workshop on self-control. In September, a Tie of Honor ceremony in Franklin featured Williamson County Mayor Andy Marshall, as local men knotted ties on new members and spoke words of encouragement.

The return shows up in the data. Report cards, attendance tracking, and behavioral observations showed early gains in attendance, classroom engagement, and peer relationships. The boys reported more confidence, stronger leadership skills, and a clearer vision for their futures. All but one of last year’s weekend participants came back, and enrollment hit a record 35, with more than 20 boys on a waiting list. Marcus reports that none has been locked up in juvenile detention. A single year of confinement for one young person can cost states more than $200,000, enough to fund this grant 40 times over.

Standards stay high: no sagging, no cussing, no Crocs. Boys are checked at the door, and anyone in wrinkled clothes or looking like he just rolled out of bed sits out, especially on days professional teachers come to lead a class. Marcus holds himself to the same rule, and he tells the boys why: “You never know when an opportunity can present itself.” He would rather have five boys dressed right and participating than a full room that isn’t. “I don’t need the numbers,” he says. “What moves me is young men who come in ready to learn.” The program loses a few boys each year to those standards, which makes last year’s near-perfect return rate even more telling.

Next comes growth: a Williamson County Saturday program launching at the end of October, a five-day summer camp in June 2027, and a plan to duplicate himself by the 2027–28 school year. That requires more mentors, more professionals willing to teach a Saturday class, and steadier funding.

“The goal is to save one,” Marcus says. Because of you, he is reaching dozens.

Thank you for showing up.