Raise Youth Into Leaders Who Restore Their Communities
A first job where teenagers are trusted, mentored, and formed into leaders of faith and service.
Every teenager deserves someone who sees their potential, even when they struggle to.
For many youth in Toronto Community Housing, the teenage years come with real pressure. They are navigating limited opportunities, peer influence, financial stress, and the search for identity, belonging, and purpose.
These are the years when young people are wondering who they’re becoming, whether anyone believes in them, and whether they have a future.
Without meaningful work, supportive adults, and a community that sees their potential, many youth have to find direction wherever they can.
No teenager should have to figure out their future alone.
Raising Young Leaders From Within the Community
UrbanPromise Toronto has walked with children and youth in Toronto Community Housing for over 25 years.
We believe every young person is made in God’s image, with gifts to develop, responsibility to carry, and a community to help restore. Through our StreetLeader program, teenagers are hired, trained, mentored, and trusted to serve the next generation of children in their own neighbourhoods.
Many of our StreetLeaders were once children in our programs. They know the journey because they have lived it. Now, they help young people discover who God made them to be.
What Your Support Makes Possible:
A First Job With Lasting Impact
Youth
Employment
StreetLeaders are paid staff. For many, this is their first job and their first experience being trusted with real responsibility. They earn a wage, show up consistently, and learn what it means to be counted on.
Mentorship and
Leadership Training
StreetLeaders receive coaching in leadership, communication, teamwork, conflict management, financial literacy, and self-leadership. They are surrounded by adults who help them grow in character, confidence, and responsibility.
Serving the Next
Generation
StreetLeaders help lead our AfterSchool Programs and camps. They mentor children, support activities, model healthy leadership, and become safe people for the kids coming up behind them.
Faith
Formation
Faith is woven into the journey. StreetLeaders are discipled by our team, invited into the Christian community, and given space to explore and deepen their relationship with Jesus.
You can help a young person become the leader their community needs.
Give Monthly
A monthly gift helps fund a StreetLeader’s employment, training, and mentorship. Your support gives youth meaningful work, steady guidance, and the opportunity to grow as leaders.
$115/month supports one StreetLeader for a day.
Mentor or Train
Use your skills to invest in a young leader. Whether you have experience in leadership, trades, business, education, finances, or another field, your presence can help a young person grow in confidence and direction.
Your support could shape a young leader’s future.
Without meaningful employment, mentorship, and a community that believes in them, teenagers can drift through some of the most important years of their lives without direction, responsibility, or hope. They enter adulthood feeling lost, and their community loses a potential leader.
But your support helps change what these years become.
A teenager is trusted with responsibility. A mentor speaks into their life. They learn to lead, serve, work hard, and see themselves as capable, valued, and loved by God. Over time, they become leaders who pour their growth back into the same neighbourhoods where they grew up.
Your support helps turn a first job into the beginning of a life of leadership.