Chaffee Mentors History

Chaffee County Traditional Mentors was founded in 2003 through a collaboration of Chaffee County Health and Human Services, Build a Generation, and Salida and Buena Vista School Districts.

In 2006, we joined forces with Nurturing Parenting and Youth at Crossroads to form Family & Youth Initiatives (FYI) a prevention branch of Chaffee County Health & Human Services. In 2008 Chaffee County Mentors PLUS was initiated to serve as an intervention mentoring program serving ages 14 – 18. In 2010 Traditional Mentoring and Mentors PLUS merged to form Chaffee County Mentors Program.

Today over 47 youth and young adults between the ages of 7 and 21 are participants of the program. Under FYI, our research-based mentoring programs have evolved to meet the unique needs of our community.