I was privileged to meet Mother Teresa four times before she passed away in 1997. You could say I caught my passion to mentor kids from Mother Teresa. On one of those occasions, she encouraged me to “Go back to your own ‘Calcutta’ and ‘be Jesus’ to your people.” Basically that meant to go to a place of great need and be a part of the solution. Her mantra was to give to the poorest of the poor. My mantra is to reach the roughest of the rough — kids, that is. Now some 25 years later, her influence is still producing fruit in my life. That is why I am so passionate about the role that mentoring plays in the life of another. What a joy to know that we can help others by simply finding a need and meeting it.