For a lot of young children, summer can be a long, quiet stretch. For the girls Crystal works with, it has been full. Trips to the library, books they picked themselves and read cover to cover, and afternoons out that did not have to cost much.

Crystal is a Friend (paid, professional mentor) at Friends of the Children – Stockton. Her job is to show up for the same young children every week, year after year. What stands out about her summer is how she does it.

She looks for the good experiences already out there, the free ones and the low-cost ones, and she finds ways to reach not only her youth but the people at home with them.

When the local library opened its summer reading challenge, Crystal signed her youth up and kept them reading all season. Two of the girls were chosen as prize winners and got to add a new book to a shelf that is now their own. Along the way they picked up vocabulary, read a little more easily than the month before, and learned that finishing a book is something to be proud of.

That reading has carried into another project. Through the Aaron Judge All Rise Foundation Book Club, Crystal's youth are reading and writing their own book reports to earn a certificate. Some of the girls have theirs in hand already. A few more are on the way.

Getting out into the community matters to Crystal, and she is resourceful about how she does it. She looks for the free and low-cost options around Stockton, a dollar movie day, or a free lunch program she found for youth in the area that she brings her girls to whenever she has them. Ordinary afternoons out, made possible because someone went looking for them.

She has found a way to reach the whole family too, without leaving anyone out. Using our family engagement fund, Crystal put together games and snacks and delivered them to her youth's homes, so siblings and caregivers have what they need for a night together. She is not there for those evenings, and that is the point. The time belongs to the family.

"Our relationship goes beyond structured activities. We laugh, talk, and build a genuine connection." — Crystal

This is our Power of One approach in practice, supporting the child and the people around them.

It is a summer of small wins added up: a book finished, a certificate earned, a night the whole family shares. Underneath all of it is the same steady fact. A Friend who shows up, week after week, so a child knows someone reliable is in her corner.

Crystal's work with Stockton's youth has been recognized across the national Friends of the Children network. Closer to home, it shows up in a girl who now reaches for a book on her own.

This is what our model looks like on an ordinary summer afternoon. One Friend, committed to one child for 12+ years, no matter what. As a growing chapter, we can do this because people in our community choose to build it with us.

If you would like to help more children in Stockton have a Friend of their own, your gift makes summers like this possible!