Before ending 2025, become a champion of hope!

The Preston Brown Foundation’s 2025 Year-End Campaign invites our community to Champion Hope and Champion the Future for young people across Greater Cincinnati. Through creative expression, wellness resources, and mentorship, we help students build emotional strength, discover their voice, and feel supported every day. When you give, you help provide the strength, support, and space our youth need to thrive.

PBF's mission is to empower young people to build strong futures through resources and experiences that support their mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. We focus on Black and Brown youth in under-resourced neighborhoods — students carrying stress and pressures no child should face alone.

The urgency is real:

• The suicide rate among Black adolescents has risen 144% over the past decade.
• Black youth experienced higher rates of caregiver loss during COVID-19 than their peers.
• Many students face mental health challenges that go unseen and unsupported due to the lack of culturally competent resources.
• School connectedness — safe, caring relationships with adults — is one of the strongest protective factors for student mental health.

This is why we exist.
Greater Cincinnati faces a 26-year gap in life expectancy between neighborhoods. We cannot close that gap without caring for the mental and emotional wellbeing of the young people growing up in those communities. Research shows that preventive strategies and early interventions — the very core of our work — make a lasting impact.

And because of supporters like you, that impact is already happening:

• 95% of students reported their first-ever experience with self-care practices through our programs.
• 92% reported an improved sense of wellbeing.
• 100% of adults trained in Youth Mental Health First Aid reported improved understanding of youth mental health challenges.

Your gift is not just charitable — it is necessary.

As we close the year, I want to invite you — if you’re able — to make one more gift to help us finish strong. Your support will allow us to expand:

A.R.T. Expression

Creative spaces where more than 300 students discover confidence, resilience, and healing through hands-on artistic expression.

R.E.F.U.E.L. Wellness Stations

Mindfulness practices like yoga, breathwork, and meditation that help more than 500 student-athletes manage stress and strengthen self-awareness.

Rally Champs Mentoring

Consistent, caring relationships that connect deserving students with trained adults who show up for them — emotionally, academically, and personally.

Your generosity continues this care.
Your kindness continues this hope.

If you’re able to give one more gift before the year ends, we would be deeply grateful.

With gratitude,
Patrice McDowell-Brown, Executive Director
The Preston Brown Foundation