The Arthur Project

The Arthur Project was co-founded by Liz Murray and Jeff Muti in 2017. Liz is best known as the author of Breaking Night: My Journey from Homeless to Harvard, a memoir that was also made into a Lifetime film documenting her journey from homeless youth to Harvard graduate. Liz’s work at The Arthur Project is inspired by two mentors who changed her life, and her experience has greatly informed our model. Media links on Liz are below:

Memoir: http://amzn.to/1tOEq0l 

NYT's: http://nyti.ms/1FUKPvY

Oprah Show: http://bit.ly/1jRqBwK

Washington Speakers: http://bit.ly/1r2Kc9Y

The Arthur Project is redefining youth mentoring.  Rather than pairing children with untrained volunteers in programs that are unstructured, The Arthur Project engages Master of Social Work graduate students who are emerging clinicians to be mentors. Where most programs offer a total of 40 hours of mentoring for students in the life of the program, our students engage in up to 500 hours of mentoring per year.  We also focus exclusively on middle school, as it is too often overlooked as being one of the most pivotal time periods in the life of a young person.  As such, it is also vastly underinvested in. 

The program currently operates in two middle schools in the Bronx and serves over 150 mentees.  In the coming years, The Arthur Project intends to continue to expand to other public schools in New York City and is in discussions to expand its programs to other cities throughout the U.S.