The Youth Storytelling Pathway

The Folded Leaf Youth Storytelling Pathway is a yearlong program where high school participants learn to mentor younger readers while reflecting on their experiences through creative writing. Middle and elementary school students have the chance to build relationships with older students, work on community improvement projects alongside their high school partners, and discover the power of books and their positive impact.

Flyer for The Next Chapter Mentor Network by The Folded Leaf Foundation, featuring an image of four young people sitting and standing in a room, engaging in a discussion or activity.

Are you interested in The Youth Storytelling Pathway?

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  • Program structure: Each high school student is paired with a trusted adult mentor. Over five weeks, the pair moves through a guided curriculum focused on identity, communication, empathy, mentorship, boundaries, and leadership. The adult is not simply teaching the student how to mentor—the two are building a real mentoring relationship together.

    After completing the five-week program, participants have a one-month reflection and transition period before the high school student is paired with a younger student through The Literacy Promise Project.

    This program requires mentors to go through an interview process and background check.

    Email Rachel@thefoldedleafnomi.com for more details or questions.

Become a Mentor!
A woman and young boy with curly hair inside a cozy fabric play tent on a wooden floor, smiling and sharing a happy moment, with toys visible nearby.

  • The Literacy Promise Project is a mentorship-based reading program that pairs high school students with younger students across Northwest Lower Michigan. Together, they read a banned, challenged, or classic book over one to three months, then create a community improvement project inspired by the story’s themes. Designed especially to support at-risk youth, the program also provides practical care through grocery, household, or hygiene bags at each meeting. Monetary donations directly support both the books used in the program and the essential items provided to participants and their families.

Join the Literacy Promise Project
Support Youth Literacy
Close-up of a person writing on a piece of paper with a pen, seated at a wooden table.

  • The Open Book Project serves as the creative capstone of the pathway. High school participants take what they learned through The Mentor Network and Literacy Promise Project, and turn it into an original piece of writing.

    The program will not require participants to write only about their mentorship experience. That experience is the starting point, but students are encouraged to explore any story, question, or idea that has become meaningful to them.

Learn More about The Open Book Project

Help write the next chapter for Northern Michigan.

Together, we can place more books in young people’s hands, surround them with caring relationships, and give them the tools to shape stories—and communities—of their own.

Two girls walking arm in arm along an urban street, dressed in casual summer dresses, with one girl wearing a black dress with a floral pattern and the other in a light-colored floral dress, sunlight illuminating the scene with tall brick buildings and a tree in the background.

  • The Folded Leaf Foundation General Fund is for operating expenses like background checks, licensing fees, overhead costs (i.e. office rent), and critical community support for our neighbors.

    Please email Rachel@thefoldedleafnomi.com for more details or questions.

Contribute to the General Fund