Comunity Groups are regular meetings which comprise the core of Journeymen’s group mentoring approach. They occur on the first and third Tuesday of the month, at Land of the Sky (15 Overbrook place, Asheville, NC 28805) from 6pm to 8pm. Each group strives for a 1:2 ratio of mentors to mentees (or “J-men”), and features team-building activities, discussion topics, games, and personal sharing, building strong, lasting bonds among mentors and J-men and empowering J-men to develop emotional intelligence, accountability and self-confidence. J-men are encouraged to take on leadership responsibilities within the group.

For millenia, our ancestors marked young men’s transition into adulthood through well-planned and challenging rites of passage. But these initiations were never just a formality or a threshold: they were tests which put the young men in uniquely challenging situations where they had to learn about their inner strengths and gifts in order to succeed. What’s more—they infused these young men’s natural drive for freedom and risk with a sense of personal responsibility. Journeymen’s Rites of Passage Adventure Weekend (ROPAW) is hosted twice each year as a modern-day opportunity for young men to find personal empowerment, self-knowledge, and to let go of what no longer serves them so that they can grow into the men they want to be.

Over the past 5 years, Journeymen’s Crafting Passages program has held 8-week long afterschool programs at UNC Asheville’s S.T.E.A.M Studio (link to their web-page). These project-based mentoring programs have been successful in giving groups of teenagers the opportunity to learn engineering and design skills within a University setting. We strive to empower teenagers to practice the skills needed to learn about themselves while overcoming internal and external challenges.  Although many of our programs are partnered with the Asheville City Schools Foundation’s “In Real Life’ program, we are also opening up space for other students within our community to participate in this program this Fall! Space is limited so apply now if you’re interested in participating as a student or as a mentor!