The district attorney’s office is launching a mentorship volunteer program aimed at helping at-risk youth.

Tony LeMon is the chief of the civil division at District Attorney Warren Montgomery’s office, and he said the program would pair volunteer adults with youths who do not have many good adult role models in their lives.

“A lot of these young people don’t have mentors,” he said. “They don’t have anybody in their family or their life to guide them to do the right thing.”

He said volunteers don’t have to make a huge sacrifice of time, but they have to pledge to meet for an informal activity with their mentee once a month or so.

“It’s more of an informal thing,” he said. “Let’s go have a cup of coffee and talk about how your life is going. A lot of these kids we’re meeting, they’re dying for something like that.”

LeMon said the program isn’t exactly modeled on any particular program. Rather, it arose as a response to a need he sees.

“The idea of a mentor to me just seemed like it made a lot of sense,” LeMon said.

“This is a novel thing. I don’t think I’ve heard of anybody else in the country that’s doing this.”

LeMon explained that Montgomery has a clear vision for his office.

“Every day you come here to this office, you try to improve whatever you’re doing,” LeMon said.

Right now, LeMon is getting the word out to sign up volunteers, and he said if anyone is interested in the program, they can call the DA’s office.

“Call 809-8383 and say you’d like to be considered as a mentor for the diversion program,” he said.