Preston Pollard grew up in Alaska. Not exactly the mecca for skateboarders. But Pollard isn’t one to follow in anyone else’s footsteps.

After high school, Pollard moved to Los Angeles and became a professional skateboarder. Unlike the typical introvert who thrives in the art of motion and solitude of ramps, Pollard also became a motivational speaker. His good looks and camera presence got him work as a model for Nike and Forever 21. But rather than pursue fame and fortune, Pollard set his sights on helping young people.

“Through all of my speaking engagements over the years, I’ve realized one thing,” Pollard says. “Young people need mentors.”

The family looks a little different in America today than it did 65 years ago. One in four children is growing up in a single-parent family, compared to just 9% in 1960. That puts an enormous amount of pressure on those parents. The kids end up with fewer mentors, less supervision, more time alone, more difficulty making connections and a harder time processing negative emotions.

It’s unfair that so many children must deal with feelings of loss and separation. They need the example of adults who have conquered their fears, bridled their emotions and found a love of life.

As an African American skateboarder from Alaska, Pollard is the perfect mentor to teach kids about just being who you are, about handling the slopes that rise up in front of you and wheeling along carefree when life is good. He took the Zen of bending curves on slopes and defying gravity in the air to a form of meditation that teaches kids to breathe in opportunities.

Young people come into the program looking for an easy way out, but what these kids find is a new way to think about life. The session begins with a deep breathing exercise, a reverence for the life within. Videos of celebrities offer encouragement and life lessons the kids will look to. Hungry for mentors, they tune in.

Participants spend time in introspection, writing down goals, feelings, and ways to deal with adversity based on what they have learned. And they get visits from Pollard.

Sometimes he arrives in person, and sometimes he appears live on screen. And he always delivers. He is the mentor that has been missing in their lives, a rebel skater with a cause: to bring kids out of the darkness of self-isolation into the sunlight of self-acceptance.

Pollard has skated his way all over the country. He has appeared in ads for major brands like Nike, Vox and Jones Soda. His face is on billboards in major cities and the underside of skateboard decks. And he speaks to kids about the spiritual act of becoming.

“Be yourself, and be positive,” he says. He urges them to breathe in the world around them and exhale the negativity that forms inside when they forget how much they matter.

The Foundation for a Better Life promotes positive values to live by and pass along to others. Go to PassItOn.com.