How one board member’s belief, years of mentorship, and a community’s commitment helped a young man reach the stars.
What happens when a child from Monmouth County is surrounded by the right people at exactly the right time?
Sometimes, he ends up working for NASA.
Earnest M. came to Aslan Youth Ministries as a young boy growing up in a single-parent household in Red Bank. Like so many of the children we serve, his circumstances could have quietly determined his ceiling before he ever had a chance to discover how high he could actually go.
Aslan does not believe in ceilings.
From the beginning, Earnest was welcomed into a community built to support every dimension of who he was becoming. He joined our Right Choices Bible study and character development program, where he began building a personal foundation and a sense of purpose that would carry him through every challenge ahead. He worked one-on-one with a tutor who met him exactly where he was and helped him grow from that place, patiently and consistently, week after week.
He rode with us on our long-distance biking program, pushing himself further than he thought he could go and learning something important along the way: that endurance was something he could build. That when things got hard, he could keep going.
He came to summer camp, where he laughed, connected, and experienced the kind of childhood moments that every young person deserves, regardless of what their family can afford.
And then something happened that changed everything.
An Aslan board member, a skilled and accomplished professional who gave their time and expertise to the young people in our programs, formed a leadership group specifically for Aslan teenagers. It was in that room, surrounded by professional mentors who brought real-world knowledge and genuine investment, that Earnest encountered a vision for his future he had never considered before.
He wanted to become an engineer.
That desire, planted by a mentor who showed up for him, became the north star of everything that followed. Aslan walked alongside Earnest as he pursued that goal through high school, providing not just encouragement but practical, tangible support. When Earnest graduated and was accepted to Georgia Tech, one of the most prestigious engineering programs in the country, Aslan provided more than $20,000 in scholarship assistance to make sure he could actually get there.
Because believing in a child and investing in a child are two different things. Aslan does both.
At Georgia Tech, Earnest distinguished himself. He was selected for a highly competitive internship at NASA, where he worked alongside some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world. He graduated with his engineering degree and went on to build his career there.
A boy from a single-parent home in Monmouth County, New Jersey. An engineer at NASA.
That is not luck. That is what happens when a child is paired with the right mentor, surrounded by a consistent community, and supported at every stage of his journey by people who refused to stop believing in him.
Why Your Support Matters
Earnest’s journey happened because a community showed up for him at every stage. A tutor. A mentor. A leadership group. A scholarship. Each investment built on the last and compounded over years into something none of us could have fully predicted when he first walked through our doors.
There are children in our programs right now in Red Bank, Long Branch, Asbury Park, and Neptune who carry the same potential Earnest carried. They need the same things he needed: someone who sees them, someone who teaches them, and someone who refuses to place a ceiling on what they can become.
Your gift to the Aslan Youth Ministries Alumni Fund is that investment.
It funds the tutoring sessions. The mentoring relationships. The scholarship support. The blue bus that brings a child safely to our doors. And the mission experiences in Haiti that have been opening young eyes and reshaping young futures for decades.
The next Earnest is already in our program. He just does not know yet what he is capable of.
You do. Because someone once believed the same thing about you.
Give to the Alumni Fund today at aslanyouth.org or contact us at development@aslanyouth.org.
