Tele-Hope was officially launched on December 6, 2022, but the dream began long before that.

 

Since 2019, I knew I wanted to start a nonprofit. Tele-Hope has always had one goal: to create hope for others. Not the vague kind, but the tangible hope you feel when someone truly sees you. The kind you feel when someone shows up for you. The kind you experience when someone genuinely listens. This vision drove me to play football in college —to gain exposure and a 'platform' for a bigger purpose. With this platform, I could expand my vision and help people feel seen, heard, and believed in.

 

From the start, playing sports in college was a long shot for me.  As the son of immigrant parents, the only acceptable path was to become a doctor. There wasn't much support to go play division 1, at least not the kind I wanted. In high school, I tried to navigate a seemingly meaningless void of finding meaning .  My friends were there, but like any teenager, I didn't talk to them about what mattered or even know how to.  Surrounded by people who felt more like brothers than friends, I felt alone. I did not have the confidence to talk to them.

 

On December 19, 2019, after a series of setbacks that felt like my world was crumbling (recruiting challenges, a breakup, family issues, bullying)  for an 18-year-old—I contemplated my life. Feeling like a failure, I drove into the mountains at 147 mph at 12 AM, not caring about the consequences, wanting to make a suicide look like an accident.

 

When I got up to the mountain, something stopped me through the tears and anger. I pulled over. Looked up. Cried some more, cursed even more, and then, despite my better judgment, I tested God. I asked Him to show me a sign. Something real. Something I had never seen before. A shooting star. I closed my eyes. Prayed. Waited. I waited until a car passed by because I wanted to know I was not the only one driving so late in the mountains. A car finally passed. I opened my eyes. There it was. My first shooting star. My sign of hope.

 

In that moment, I knew I was going to be okay and that's when Tele-Hope began. I do not want anyone to feel the way I did that day. 

 

That's where the name and the logo came from. Sometimes, when everything gets a little blurry, we need someone or something to be our sign of hope. Sometimes we need a telescope, or sometimes we just need a friend or a teammate—anyone who can help us see something more. We can be each others telescopes, we can show each other shooting stars without having reached our wits end. 

 

At Tele-Hope, we believe it's never too late or too weird to connect with someone. We want people of any age to know they're not alone. We believe in the research showing that feeling cared about and having even one genuine friend can change everything, and that's what we set out to provide. That's why we teach what it truly means to be there for each other—what it means to be a real friend—before things get too heavy. And for the moments when everything gets tough, we show up, lean in, listen, and seek help together. We want to create confidence for others to connect. 

 

That's what Tele-Hope is all about. We can all be someones sign of hope. 

​