Northwest Youth and Family Services (NYFS) is happy to announce a new program called The STEP Program. STEP stands for Service + Tutoring Equals Pride, and is a free program designed for youth who are not reaching their full academic potential and/or may be struggling socially. NYFS has partnered with Americorps, Minnesota Alliance with Youth and the Mounds View School District to offer the youth in our community a safe and caring environment, enabling them to spend their time connecting with caring mentors. Through the resources that the program offers, youth are challenged to stretch themselves academically, pursue leadership and service opportunities and to learn more about planning for college and post-secondary educational opportunities.
STEP operates at three different sites: NYFS, Highview Middle School and Edgewood Middle School. All three programs are coordinated by Americorps Promise Fellows. At NYFS, STEP is offered three evenings a week. Two of the three evenings are focused on academic tutoring sessions and educational activities. The goals of this program are that each student improve their grades by one full letter grade, have better study skills, learn time management, gain leadership skills, learn about future career paths/educational opportunities and understand the importance of helping others. Student in this program even have the added bonus of receiving transportation to and from the program should they need it!
The youth in their program have received the opportunity to participate in interest-based field trips such as a visit to the Shoreview Community Center's indoor water park, which was a highlight of the program. They are also planning field trips to go bowling, play at Eagles Nest Indoor Playground, visit Mall of America's Nickelodeon theme park and so much more! Additionally, they are providing their youth the opportunity to serve a Christmas meal to senior citizens and their families at Presbyterian Homes of Arden Hills on December 8th and 9th. Through this event, they anticipate the youth will learn leadership skills and get a glimpse of future career paths they may want to embark on in the future. Within the next month, they will also be providing tours of local colleges (Century College and Bethel University) so their youth can begin to plan for the future.
Of course, they want their youth to be well rounded, and be equipped to better serve their community so they have designed some service-learning opportunities to assist them in this area. They are in the process of having their youth participate in a Hunger, Homelessness and Poverty unit, where students were given the opportunity to tour Simpson Housing Services in Minneapolis. They are planning more shelter tours and eventually would like to have a fundraiser to raise money so they can donate food, as well as serve a meal at a local shelter. While participating in such a unit can be emotional, the AmeriCorps Promise Fellow, Holly “believes it is very important to have [their] youth realize the tragedies that exist in [their] community.” In Minnesota alone, each shelter turns away approximately 1,000 individuals each night. Holly’s hope is for the youth in her program to realize they can make a difference. During her childhood, there were economic struggles that often made it difficult for her mother to put food on the table. Despite this, she persevered, and to this day her mother is her role model. When Holly was 13 years old her mother had her volunteer at their church for the entire month of December, and it was during that time that she begin to realize that she could make a difference. At their church, they offered a shelter in the basement for those in need; she remembers the first night, when she began to understand the power of helping others. It was this experience as a child that has pushed her to want to help others such as the youth in STEP to realize that they, too, can make a difference.
Although Holly has only been in the position of serving as a Promise Fellow since August, she says that “it has been one of the greatest challenges and most rewarding experiences [she has] ever had.” She feels fortunate to have the support of the NYFS family and Promise Fellows on her School-Community Partnership team. Although she was not expecting to see much success very early on in the program, recently one of the STEP youth asked her what she wanted to do when I “grew up.” She told him she wanted to be a counselor and help others. His exact words were “you are already a counselor. You continue to help me, even though I am a challenge. You haven't gave up on me yet.” AmeriCorps Promise Fellows do make a difference in the world.
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