$1M gift to Mayhew Program allows nonprofit to serve more Granite State boys

BRISTOL — For decades, the 133-year-old Mayhew Program has only served a fraction of the vulnerable boys across New Hampshire who need extra support to graduate from high school. A recent $1 million gift will help leaders begin to meet the demand.

Just before the end of the year, an anonymous gift was received from a Granite State native who’d been supporting Mayhew since the 1980s, and a member of the David H. Souter Legacy Society. It’s the largest single donation in the history of the organization.

“We were incredibly surprised and grateful and humbled,” said Peter Saliba, executive director, who learned about the donation via mail by the executor of the donor’s estate. “It’s like nothing we’ve ever experienced.”

Saliba said it’s unclear how many more boys will be served, but the board will study the matter over the next six months and create a plan.

What is certain is the gift will bring the organization’s endowment from $9 to $10 million, and the additional interest revenue will fund new personnel as well as enhancements to the physical plant, the current size creating limitations. Mayhew now consists of six cabins on Mayhew Island on Newfound Lake, along with a dining hall and help center.

“For someone to have it in their heart to leave this sizable gift to an organization like Mayhew is truly incredible and life-altering for the organization. This gift will allow Mayhew to continue believing in the boys, oftentimes before they believe in themselves, for many years to come. We are overflowing with gratitude,” said Board Chair Rick Alpers.

Mayhew by the numbers

Since 1969, the nonprofit organization has worked with over 2,400 young men from across the state, helping them become their best selves, providing structure, skills and encouragement as they learn to define success in their own lives.

At present, Mayhew and its staff of 11 — or 25 in the summer — serves 225 boys throughout the state on a $1.6 million annual budget. Saliba said, with the endowment at $9 million, $900,000 was raised annually from individuals, $300,000 from private grants, and a draw of 4.5% from the organization’s endowment provided $400,000.

With the endowment now at $10 million, 4.5% will translate to roughly $450,000 to support the annual budget.

Mayhew receives no state or federal funding, except for a $15,000 from the USDA, because all participants generally qualify for free lunch.

The Mayhew mission

Mayhew supports and challenges boys from New Hampshire to believe in themselves, work well with others and find their best.

Boys are referred by elementary school counselors or online, and generally enter the program at age 10 or 11, and stay through high school graduation. Most are living with families at or below the poverty line.

Saliba said the organization generally focuses on boys who have been exposed to incarceration, homelessness, and alcohol or drug addiction at home.

“These are not kids who are in the system, or have behavior problems,” he stressed. “These are just kids who really are deserving of some extra support to get them to high school graduation.”

Saliba believes Mayhew is the only program in the state to offer a summer camp experience and year-round mentoring. “This exists because all the brain science says that teens forget everything after three weeks,” he said, adding the program’s curriculum focuses all year on four core values: respect, responsibility, challenge and community.

Seven outreach workers around New Hampshire form the core staff, conducting the school-year visits and staffing the camp.

Charlie Yashinski, who lives in Belmont and Laconia, has been enrolled at Mayhew since roughly 2021, and said he's learned to be braver, more confident and tempered in the program. “I definitely believe that Mayhew changed the course of my life for the better ... and it got me out of the depressive state I was in when I was younger.”

Why not girls?

Saliba said he is often asked, “How come you don’t serve girls?”

The answer, he said, is boys are more likely to be expelled from school, have lower academic performance, experience food insecurity and homelessness, and grapple with mental health issues. “That’s what the numbers say,” Saliba said. “We believe they are very vulnerable, and we want to improve their lives.”

A sister program to Mayhew, the Circle Program, emerged in the late 1980s. “They do for girls what we do for boys,” he said. “We work shoulder-to-shoulder, and serve some of the same families.”

While a $1 million gift is wonderful, Saliba said Mayhew hopes it will create more fundraising opportunities to serve more boys. “It only gets us part of the way,” he said. “We want to use it as the basis to get us more funds, to get us all the way to the finish line.”

To learn more, visit mayhew.org or call Saliba at 603-744-6131.