NEW HAVEN – Carlos Brooks, 31, sat around a table Wednesday afternoon helping New Haven High School students with their homework.

Aside from studying, there was a good amount of inside jokes, chitchat, and even sulking when Brooks told senior Jermerques Hardy it was time to talk about his grades.

“Carlos is like a father to me,” Hardy said of Brooks, who meets with the kids twice a week after school.

“He’s always on me about my work and my choices and stuff.”

Hardy is one of about 100 high school students in East Allen County Schools participating in a new mentor program with Big Brothers Big Sisters and Fellowship Missionary Church.

The program, funded through a federal grant, is geared toward getting students on the path to college. Organizers hope the relationships will continue after students go off to school, giving them extra support as they work toward college graduation.

“We need to give kids the resources to be successful,” said Brooks, who runs a private tutoring company called Growing Minds. “If you take a genuine interest in a kid’s life, then it increases the chance of them doing well.”

To qualify, students must be involved with 21st Century Scholars, a program that helps students from low-income families pay for college tuition at a public school or a portion of tuition at a private college, assuming they meet certain academic requirements.

Both mentoring programs have the same focus, though they are run slightly differently. The Fellowship Missionary Church program, called BridgeMakers, offers students one-to-one mentoring but also pairs three students with one mentor. The program also offers after-school tutoring through Growing Minds and other after-school activities.

Big Brothers Big Sisters, on the other hand, does only one-to-one matches. The program offers after-school programming but no tutoring.

The programs take students on college visits, encourage SAT preparation and address other topics relevant to higher education. Mentors are encouraged to become friends and advocates for the students, hanging out in some capacity for two to four hours twice a month.

Last week, Garien Hudson, a mentor with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, had his match, Demetrius Carter, over for dinner.

“I like seeing how excited he gets with learning about his future and how receptive he is to it,” Hudson said. “I am telling him the things I wish I could have told myself as a sophomore.”

The Fort Wayne program is one of eight pilot programs in Indiana funded through a $1 million federal grant, according to December Warren, program director of the Indiana Mentoring Partnership. If the funding is not renewed next year, Warren said the group will seek other ways to keep the programs alive.

The partnership, which is a program of the Indiana Youth Institute, chose the groups and participating schools after an application process – deciding eventually on the former Paul Harding High School in East Allen.

After the school closed last year, organizers decided to base the BridgeMakers program mostly at Leo Junior-Senior and New Haven high schools.

Big Brothers Big Sisters works with students at the other high schools as well as those two.

Jessica Collins, a former Harding student in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, said she particularly enjoyed the college visits and the information meetings on the college application process.

“It really helps you with time management and being more responsible,” she said.

She’s been accepted into three colleges so far and hopes to go to Purdue.

dhaynie@jg.net