LAYC’s Art & Media House Honored at 22nd Annual Mayor’s Arts Awards

The Art & Media House was recognized for its outstanding work at the 22nd Annual Mayor's Arts Awards held at the Kennedy Center on Monday, March 19.

The AMH was one of three finalists in the Innovation in the Arts category, which honors individuals and organizations that demonstrate "ingenious use of skills or resources to produce art, art programs or services."

The recognition at the event, attended by more than 1000 people who care about the arts and hosted by WAMU radio host Kojo Nnamdi, reminds us of all the wonderful programming youth are able to access through AMH.  Drawing, graffiti art, mixed media, painting, photography, beatmaking, music recording, photoshop, video production, hip hop, DJ.  It's an amazing collection of programs.

Congratulations to Marie Moll, Ronald Chacon and all the staff at AMH who offer such a rich and diverse set of arts and media programming.

Photos Tell the Story

The 12th Annual Kids Health Fair, hosted by LAYC's Stages of Life program, was held Saturday March 16th at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School.  Hundreds of students and many parents from Bruce-Monroe came out to get health information from more than 30 community health organizations.  MacFarland Middle School is next up, with its Kids Health Fair slated for March 30th.

Stages of Life(SOL) is an abstinence-based program that promotes teen pregnancy prevention as a key component to the completion of education. The SOL Program, operated by LAYC’s Service Corps members, organizes health education workshops, health fairs, after-school and parent-involvement activities for elementary school and middle school students.

See You at the Wilson Building

It’s been a busy month of DC City Council Oversight hearings for LAYC. LAYC has testified on its work with the Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation, the Department of Employment Services, Department of Human Services, Office on Latino Affairs and the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.  Additionally, Kairo Vivas, a senior at the University of Maryland and a participant in LAYC’s Individual Development Account (IDA) program, testified on the IDA program, which matches 4-1 student savings toward post-secondary education.  Kairo explained to the Council, “Just this past week, I took out the $3,000 I had been able to accumulate during the past two years through IDA and used it to help make my last tuition payment at the University of Maryland.”

Family to Family Mentoring Gets Results

LAYC’s Family to Family Mentoring program, which provides low-income families with support to reduce their dependency on welfare and social services, just completed an evaluation of its first 14-week session of the year.  Quantitative analysis of pre-and post-tests of the participants showed a statistically significant improvement in both life skills, such as knowledge of employment, money management and legal services, and English-language knowledge.  

Additionally, 8 of the 15 participants who completed the program found a job while in the program.  Another participant who found a job was unable to complete the program because of the job requirements.   The average salary for the recently hired workers is $10.55 per hour, well above minimum wage in the District of Columbia.

The goal of the Family to Family program is to strengthen family relationships, including marriage, that are central to achieving and sustaining personal responsibility and self-sufficiency with the aim of moving families beyond welfare dependency. To do this, the program combines staff-led classes in areas such as computer training and English with peer-to-peer learning, where mentor and mentee families are paired together to build relationship skills and to provide ongoing support outside of scheduled classroom and workshop hours. 

The evaluation shows that participants are benefiting from the program, building new skills and finding new jobs that are helping them move toward self-sufficiency.  Congratulations to the program participants and staff!

YouthBuild Public Charter School Student Elected to YouthBuild USA’s National Young Leaders Council

Sandra Quel, a student at YouthBuild Public Charter School, was recently elected to YouthBuild USA’s national Young Leaders Council (YLC), a peer-elected body of YouthBuild participants and graduates from across the country. The YLC has been in existence for more than 20 years and exists to ensure meaningful representation of disconnected or low-income young people throughout YouthBuild and the broader youth development field. YLC members are engaged in YouthBuild USA’s decision-making and policy design efforts.

Sandra was elected to the YLC at the 19th annual YouthBuild USA Conference of Young Leaders in Washington, D.C., where she joined approximately 100 student leaders representing their YouthBuild programs from March 1st-6th to participate in a series of leadership development events. Following the formal conference program, Sandra and the other young leaders held nearly 100 meetings with legislators or their staff to share their YouthBuild experiences and emphasize the need to support the expansion of YouthBuild to more communities and young people across the country.

Sandra will serve a two-year term on the YLC and attend several multi-day meetings to advise on national policies and political strategies for the YouthBuild movement. She will also serve as a spokesperson and representative of the YouthBuild movement.

“We are proud to have Sandra represent our YouthBuild program and our community at the national level,” said Patricia Bravo, Executive Director of the YouthBuild Public Charter School. “She is a wonderful role model for other young people in the District and across the country – she proves that young people can make a difference in their communities and the lives of others.”

LAYC’s Work at MacFarland Middle School Highlighted by DC Public Schools (DCPS)

A recent DC Public Schools press release shined a spotlight on LAYC’s efforts at MacFarland Middle School to improve students’ academic performance and build their self-confidence.   “The impact of LAYC on our students has been nothing short of incredible,” said MacFarland Principal Antonia Peters.  “They came in, became actively engaged with our students, and have become an essential part of MacFarland’s formula for success.  Their enthusiastic involvement clearly shows the strong potential for community participation and engagement in education.”  As an approved Supplemental Education Services (SES) provider, LAYC tutors students in math and reading.  LAYC also works with English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers to assist students in their programs.  And five of LAYC’s AmeriCorps members are at MacFarland all day, five days a week, working at the school in a broad range of programs.  Click here to read the release.

Fun Facts from LAYC’s Learning and Evaluation Division

Did you know that LAYC provided services/programming last year to one out of six Latino/as in DC between the ages of 15 and 19?  In case you’re wondering about the actual numbers, 304 Latino youth between 15-19 participated in LAYC programming out of DC’s 1,751 Latino youth in this age category (Internal LAYC data and American Community Survey DC population estimates, U.S. Census Bureau.)

LAYC Raises Dollars For Its Long-Term Future

Special thanks to Capital One for hosting a fun and tasty dinner at LAYC on March 22nd to raise money for LAYC’s Future Fund. Guests enjoyed the great food from Occasions Caterers and the opportunity to learn more about the Future Fund. The Future Fund was created by LAYC’s Board of Directors in spring 2006 to support the organization’s future operations, ensuring that our programs and services will always be there for the young people who need them. Board members Rick England and Julie Jensen kicked off the fund last spring with generous contributions. And thanks to an anonymous donor, the first $500,000 raised for the Future Fund will be matched dollar for dollar. So far, LAYC has raised approximately $300,000 toward its goal of $3 million. If you would like to contribute to the Future Fund, please click here.

The LAYC Family of Organizations is a network of youth centers, schools, and social enterprises with a shared commitment to helping youth become successful and happy young adults, with the skills they need to succeed educationally, professionally and personally.  For more information, please go to www.layc-dc.org.