The Lifting and Impacting Futures through Education Mentoring Program was founded by Christian Richardson in 2013 and established at Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2014. With the assistance of close friend and fellow teacher Bobby Deandre Miles, both developed the purpose of the program to build character and foster resilience in young minority males by supporting them academically, socially, and emotionally. They sought to take scholars from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds and provide them with the necessary skills to develop into well-rounded young men. The first inductees of the L.I.F.E. Program Charlotte included a total of 20 eight grade males followed by a cluster of 13 8th-grade males in the next year. 

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Christian’s older brother, Dontrell Richardson was motivated by the success and goals of the program. In 2015, he along with Emory Norris and Felix Baker worked to establish an extension of L.I.F.E. at Memorial Middle School in Orlando, Florida. In 2016, the L.I.F.E. Program Orlando inducted its first official cluster of 14 eight grade males. Since then, the program has now grown to offer membership to young men of all grades and as so, has extended into many other schools within the Orlando area as well as to cities such as Detroit in Michigan and now Nashville in Tennessee.