It could be a father and son or a youngster and his big brother, but for 8-year-old Javon this is the day he spends with his mentor.

Greg Harvey, 27, is part of Eckerd Kid’s long term mentorship program called Friends of the Children. Children in kindergarten through high school can take part.

A full-time paid job, each mentor has eight kids in foster care that he or she meets with for four hours each week.  They spend two hours at school by their child’s side in the classroom and then spend two hours away from school, often outdoors.

"We always start off with some kind of educational aspects first, whether it’s working on this, or reading, or homework," Harvey said. "We always begin with educational aspects first before we go into our more fun like football, or basketball, or anything else."

Sixty percent of the youngsters in the program have parents who did not graduate from high school. Fifty percent have parents who were incarcerated, and 85 percent were born to a teen parent.

“It’s kind of unexplainable at times,” Harvey said.  “Just seeing the looks on their faces when we’re hanging out and the things we do.  I love every bit of it.”

Friends of the Children director Carmi Brown says Greg is what the program is all about.

“Greg is very typical while he definitely is one of a kind,” Brown said.  “The love and the compassion that they have for wanting to see the children succeed is exactly what we look for in a mentor.”

It’s a long term friendship that may very well last a lifetime.

"I’m just hanging out with the little guy, he’s like my little brother," Harvey said. "So to be called a hero, I definitely appreciate."