History

Pensacola’s Promise began as a youth oriented program in 1999. At the time we sponsored mentoring programs, taught life skills, and work with a variety of small projects. Our hearts were in the right place but we lacked focus.

In 2002 we stepped back and did a comprehensive research on Escambia County teens. Using the landmark Search Institute 40 Assets study, we surveyed an unprecedented 3000 middle and high school students.

Finally a pictured emerged of what our teen’s need and Chain Reaction was born to meet those needs.

In 2002 Pensacola’s Promise conducted local research, using a national assessment tool. With the assistance of the Escambia County school district, we surveyed over 3,000 middle and high school students. With this data, we are able it asses the strengths and needs of teenagers in our community and concluded that a teen volunteer center would enable us to build a better quality of life for all teenagers.

Chain Reaction is modeled after the nation’s best locally based volunteer center in the county, the ManaTEENS. It was started by two sisters’ in1994 that wanted to volunteer in their community. Now, thirteen years later, it has14,000 teen members who perform 1.5 million hours of service.

Chain Reaction first meeting was attend by 10 teens now we have almost 600 members and continue to grow everyday.