LC grad founded mentoring program

Brent Lindquist
Tribune intern reporter

Roy Clark

“2000 men for 2010.”
  These words splash across the front page of the Mentor1 Web site. The goal is high, but the organization’s founder believes it can be achieved.
  Former Lyndenite Roy Clark founded the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based organization in October 2007 with the intent of providing mentors for those in need. The organization had gone by several different names previously.
  Clark, a self-proclaimed “country boy,” hails from Barns, Kansas, a tiny town of only 56. He moved to Lynden as a fifth grader in 1976 and attended Lynden public schools for six years.
  Clark came to Lynden Christian High School as a junior. He cites former LCHS principal Ron Polinder as one of his own mentors.
  “He had his John Deere hat and his work boots on,” Clark said. “I said to myself, ‘This is a guy I could work with.’”
  Clark went on to Calvin College in Grand Rapids with 18 other fellow Lynden Christian graduates, and majored in psychology.
  He then served as a youth director at two Christian Reformed churches in Michigan for a total of 10 years.
  Taking a different career turn altogether, he designed, created and ran two restaurants in Grand Rapids, a coffee house and a pizza and hot dog place. These kept Clark in contact with young people.
  He also worked with Youth for Christ, a parachurch youth organization, and his mentoring vision came out of this.
  Mentor1 works to find mentors for 20 different mentoring organizations. Clark was inspired by the overwhelming need for father figures in America.
  “Nationwide we have a 40 percent fatherless rate,” Clark said. “It’s an epidemic. It’s really sad.”
  The goal of Mentor1 is to create a culture of awareness and mentoring, and to secure mentors for those in need. The Mentor1 Hummer is one way the organization makes itself known.
  “Somebody donated a 1993 H1 Hummer to us,” Clark said. “In Grand Rapids, the Mentor1 Hummer is well-known. It’s a riot.”
  Mentor1 primarily mentors boys because they have the greater need over girls. “Eighty-eight percent of the mentees we have that need mentors are boys,” Clark said.
  Clark now resides in Grand Rapids with his wife, Amanda, and their three children.
  He recently returned to Lynden to speak at LCHS’s 2008 graduation, where he related some of his Mentor1 experiences.
  “[Speaking at the graduation] was an absolute riot,” Clark said. “It was an absolute honor is what I should say. I also thought it was extremely ironic that I would be the one giving the speech there.”
  E-mail Brent Lindquist at reporter@lyndentribune.com.