Beranobel Melo is changing the way children and families gain access to educational support and resources, one promise at a time.
Melo, 46, is the founder of Mentor A Promise, a nonprofit organization established in 2019 to bridge the gap for students experiencing housing instability by connecting them directly to academic support and mentorship.
Melo arrived in New York City — Harlem specifically — in the late 1980s as a young Spanish-speaking boy from the Dominican Republic, and described his journey as a traditional immigrant story. “You are an outsider for a number of years, and then you learn the language and start to assimilate customs and identity,” he said.
After moving between Harlem, the South Bronx, and Washington Heights through the mid-’90s, Melo found that his environment was actively shaping his life’s direction. “Navigating those different neighborhoods and experiences crafted what I try now to have a passion for: working with different communities and different social services areas. It definitely shaped my future.”
Melo attended college in the Midwest, majoring in philosophy and sociology, before returning to New York City to apply his education to community advocacy. Although finding immediate jobs in his exact niche was difficult, college shifted his trajectory. He credits his studies with opening his “mind to different concepts and the sociological experience — not only of immigrants, but of different groups. That stuck with me, which is why it led me back to New York City and back to where I felt comfortable, but with a different lens.”
Over the years, Melo worked in various sectors of social services. “I worked in mental health, food insecurity, street homelessness, and family shelters. That’s where the nonprofit idea came about.”
While working at a family shelter on the Lower East Side to help parents secure employment, he noticed that their children faced severe educational hardships as a result of prolonged shelter stays, some lasting up to three years. Melo quickly realized that securing a job alone wasn’t enough to solve a family’s instability, since systemic housing shortages make affordable units extremely difficult to secure.
Frustrated by the lack of educational support resources for these students, he took matters into his own hands and researched how to start a nonprofit.
After a three-year effort to officially launch the organization, the progress was suddenly halted with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown, Melo transitioned professionally into affordable housing work, but he couldn’t ignore the escalating reports of student housing instability. Driven to act, he pivoted Mentor A Promise to a virtual model in 2021.
“With Mentor A Promise, we want to make a positive impact in the lives of students and children who are in the middle of all these very complex issues — not only affordability, but education, transportation, and food insecurity,” Melo said.
He began purchasing tablets out-of-pocket, delivering them to families in shelters, and matching students with dedicated remote mentors.
Today, the program’s success is demonstrated by parents returning to ask for additional tutoring sessions and services.
“So many families out there need help and don’t trust any sort of institution to help them without making a request back,” Melo noted. “When parents continue to come to me, not only to thank me but to request more people to join the organization, that makes me really happy because they see the benefit.”
The organization’s ongoing operation is the work of its passionate volunteer network. “There are a lot of constraints and challenges when it comes to running a volunteer-based organization,” Melo acknowledged, “but on the flip side, it’s one of the most rewarding and amazing experiences of my life.”
From a young immigrant boy navigating New York City to leading an organization that empowers local youth, Melo remains focused on expanding the nonprofit’s reach.
“We are open to coming together as a community to make a positive impact in the lives of our students,” Melo said. “We hope to continue to grow and spotlight their challenges, not only through the work we do, but by highlighting their stories.”
To support Mentor A Promise or learn more about their educational programs, visit their website at mentorapromise.org.
