Category: Afterschool Program

A Tale of 2021

Wow, what a journey this past year has been! With yet another year under our belts, we want to take a look back on the past 12 months and show you what we’ve been up to! 2021 was a year with lots of challenges that tested our resilience as an organization, but it was also a year of immense growth and accomplishments. Like many other organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic has redefined how YELLS approaches its programs and services for the youth of Franklin Gateway. Many of our non-vital services (like these recurring newsletters) really took a hit as we had to channel our full attention towards operating our programs in a way that ensured the safety of our staff and students while still providing valuable educational experiences and community building opportunities for our youth. From virtual programming to safely reopening our doors, it has been quite the learning experience doing what we do during the pandemic! Now, as the sun sets on one year and rises on another, we feel empowered to take on 2022 with confidence and faith in our YELLS family and community partners, knowing that whatever happens, we will be okay. So with that in mind, let’s reflect on this past year and bring you up to speed!

Achieving Outcomes

Despite the challenges of virtual programming during the 2020-2021 school year, we achieved incredible outcomes for our youth and families! In total, YELLS served 108 youth and their families in 2021. Last May, YELLS youth had a 100% graduation rate with all 11 of our seniors graduating high school, plus 4 YELLS students who graduated a year early! Additionally:

  • 96% of our youth were promoted on grade level
  • 88% of youth improved by a letter grade or maintained a B or above in Math or ELA.
  • 95% of YELLS parents rated their child’s self-esteem and confidence after participating in YELLS as “excellent” or “ good” (this represents an increase from only 54% on pre-surveys at the start of the year)

And it doesn’t stop there! Throughout the year, our YELLS Community Action Café high school teens participated in professional development workshops where they learned to write strong resumes, practiced interviewing skills, and developed networking and outreach techniques by engaging with partners to facilitate new programs to serve their community. All in all, the professional skills we taught them proved fruitful as 9 YELLS teens secured jobs!

YELLS was also successful in implementing new ways to support our youth once we did return to in-person programming. This past fall, our Volunteer Engagement Specialist, Ms. Amanda, introduced a new initiative to the YELLS Afterschool Program called Scholar Dollars! The Scholar Dollars program incentivizes our ASP kids to improve their academic enrichment by rewarding their extra effort with YELLS-branded “scholar dollars” that they can use to purchase a host of prizes and special experiences. Click here to learn more about how Scholar Dollars have gotten our students excited about reading, completing their homework, and taking on new assignments!

Furthermore, thanks to a new BOOST Grant that we acquired this year, we were able to provide extra programming related to social and emotional learning, and this led us to partnering with Sarah Gazaway, a doctoral student at Georgia State University’s HAPPI LAB! These workshops help our youth to recover from and build resilience to the challenges of isolation caused by the pandemic. Follow this link to learn more about Sarah’s amazing workshops and how our YELLS youth practice tools for mindfulness, self-compassion, positive self-talk, gratitude, and nurturing a growth mindset.

We are very proud of the outcomes we achieved this past year because it reflects the growth and success of the youth in our programs! It is also a reminder of the work still to be done to empower our young people to rise up as servant leaders in their community.

Making the Most of Virtual

All YELLS programs remained virtual during the 2020-2021 school year, with our team expertly navigating virtual programming to provide engaging workshops, emotional support and wellness, and daily individualized tutoring for our youth. There is a genuine concern that students in general are being negatively affected by the loss of in-person schooling, suffering academically, socially, and emotionally as a result. For this reason, it was imperative for us that we offered strategic and individualized instruction for our youth in order to offset the gaps from lost in-person schooling. Our virtual programs allowed our students to connect with their peers while also expanding their academic enrichment and creating content aimed at practicing social and emotional skills that may have been impacted during virtual learning.

We also strived to support our YELLS families directly during this difficult time. Our families received activity supply drop-offs to aid in their child’s virtual learning as well as book donations delivered right to their doorstep! We also connected families with resource referrals to meet their immediate needs and informed parents with tools and coping strategies to navigate the pandemic. Perhaps most impactfully, YELLS also raised funds to provide over $20,000 in rental assistance to families struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic! We felt truly blessed to be able to assist our families in this way, especially considering all of the love and support they have shown us in the past.

There was a lot to be proud of in the virtual space for our youth! We watched our ASP kids mature and find their voice as they gained skills in coding and debating, and learned to examine complex issues in our society. They also learned to adopt a growth mindset through interactive virtual activities like designing their own “I am Powerful” posters, turning negative statements into “I can” statements, learning about love languages, and practicing positive self-talk and affirmations.

ASP youth also studied the importance of civic engagement and voting when we all got together on Zoom to watch the Inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris. Our kids celebrated in style as they dressed up with pearls and American flags that we provided in their drop-off packages. Afterwards, they wrote their own presidential pledges and together analyzed Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem. It was beautiful to watch our youth speak with confidence while respecting their peers’ opinions as they applied what they learned to solve our nation’s problems and debate in what ways we have and have not achieved MLK’s dream.

Being in the virtual space challenged our Community Action Café teens to think outside the box and find creative ways to serve the community in the midst of a pandemic. Our CAC teens dream big, and together they came up with some amazing ideas for outdoor, socially-distanced events that would bring the community together safely. They learned to effectively navigate various mediums both as professionals and community leaders as they created digital fliers, sent professional emails, and advertised their events on social media. They also showed initiative when it came time to planning and organizing their resources on the day.

The first was a “Paint and Vibe” event that brought families together in the YELLS parking lot to have fun and paint some beautiful art! They also planned the “Parking Lot Cinema” outdoor movie night, where our families and youth enjoyed pizza and snacks while watching a movie together on a projector. These events were a lot of fun, and we were really proud of our teens for rising to the challenge and planning meaningful events for our families to come together safely!

Welcome Back to In- Person Summer Camp!

After months of virtual programs, we were (finally!) preparing to open our doors for in-person summer camp! It had been over a year since YELLS had any students in the building, so we knew how important this six-week summer camp was going to be as we continued to reopen and understand our boundaries. Most importantly, we finally got to see our kids in person again!

Returning for in-person summer camp was a huge achievement. Truth is, it never would have happened if it wasn’t for the generosity of our partners at Assurant, who donated significant funds for YELLS to repair the carpeting in our building right before we welcomed back our youth. Follow this link to learn more about this fundraiser organized by Assurant to support our programs!

Our summer camp began in June 2021 and ran for nine hours every day for six weeks, providing significant support to parents who rely on YELLS for childcare. Our Volunteer Engagement Specialist, Ms. Amanda, began with us that June and got to experience YELLS for the first time in that space. In reflecting on the summer, Ms. Amanda only had positive things to say about the in-person summer camp experience.

“I think it was really successful! It got us to see and think about what worked, and it also allowed us to prep the space for in-person learning because we were able to see what individual activities we could do, and have our protocols in line,” she said. “And a lot of the kids who came back after summer camp already had a strong idea about what the protocols looked like and were already in that mindset of being respectful of the space. It also prepared staff to see what worked, what didn’t work, how many supplies were needed and how to share and distribute different games to different pods.”

Every day our ASP kids launched into choice clubs, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) challenges, book clubs, and other literacy activities led by our staff. The rest of the day – thanks to a partnership with the City of Marietta – was spent at the sports complex fields where we all got to run around, play sports, and enjoy the sunshine!

For one of the choice clubs, our leadership instructor (and former YELLS youth) Ansleigh, led a music club for the kids where each week was dedicated to a different genre and they would listen to music and learn about the history of that particular genre! One week, Ansleigh took our kids through the history of rap and its origins, and as an exercise each child wrote their own rap verses, which they really enjoyed! Another choice club that we had was our French club, where one of our former AmeriCorps VISTAs taught our youth some French, led them in decorating croissants, and together they built models of the Eiffel Tower, further encouraging their engineering and art skills.

In past years during summer camp, YELLS would take a field trip every Friday to keep our kids moving and learning in different fun settings. Although we couldn’t travel anywhere because of COVID, we still wanted to provide our youth with fun alternative field trip experiences within Franklin Gateway. One of these in-house field trips was a petting zoo that we set up at the sports complex, and our kids had an absolute blast playing with bunnies, chickens, pigs, and goats! They got to hold and pet the animals while they learned all about them. This was one of the highlights of summer camp and it’s certainly something that we are looking to do again considering how much the kids loved it!

Our Café teens were also involved in summer camp! Every day they participated in an Art Fellowship Track and a Media Production Track, where they experimented with different artistic mediums, produced a short video, and even hosted their first podcast! These rotations were helpful in teaching our teens how to combine their artistic creativity with media production know-how to create exciting content across different platforms.

Of course, we did have to make some adjustments given the nature of operating during a pandemic. But being back in-person allowed us to go more in-depth than in our virtual programming to really fill those learning gaps and rebuild those social-emotional skills between youth and families. All in all, in-person summer camp was a huge success and really set the tone for what in-person programming would look like during the school year.

Connecting with the Community

When August rolled around, we were able to open up our programs again alongside the school schedule for the first time in over a year! It felt so good to finally be back together again, and even though we were masked up and socially distanced, we all knew this was how our programs were meant to be experienced. Reopening our doors also opened the possibility of connecting with the Franklin Gateway community in ways we weren’t able to do because we were virtual for so long.

The school year kicked off with a bang when the Franklin Road Community Association (FRCA) hosted their annual Back to School Bash to celebrate Franklin Gateway students returning to school! The focus of this drive-thru event at the sports complex was to give registered Franklin Gateway families backpacks filled with school supplies to ensure our youth have everything they need to thrive in the new school year. This was a great way to kick off the fall semester and it was a big help for the Franklin Gateway students that relied on these supplies to succeed academically!

More than anything, we were SO EXCITED to have our youth back with us in the building after-school each day this year!  The fall was full of learning and growth, and our YELLS team has done an incredible job of developing dynamic activities that kept our youth gaining skills while staying safe during in-person programs.  Check out some of our favorite activities:

That being said, those first few weeks back in person were not always smooth sailing. With one week to go before the Mentoring Program was set to begin, we were informed that their usual meeting space was no longer available to use, and it was imperative that our Bigs and Littles had a place to foster those mentoring relationships. Luckily, out of this challenge we created an important new partnership that has quickly become a staple of the Mentoring Program today. Laura connected with Mr. Richard Leon, Director of Sales and Marketing at The Radisson Hotel just down the street from YELLS, who generously offered for The Radisson to host the Mentoring Program, first until the end of the year, and then that offer was extended through the end of March 2022 at least! Click here to learn more about our partnership with The Radisson and Mr. Richard Leon, and we want to extend our deepest gratitude for how they have supported the Mentoring Program these past few months. We really couldn’t have done it without them!

Incredibly, The Radisson wasn’t the only new partner that we gained this fall. We also grew our partnership with Food Security for America (FSA) and added a new partner, Northside United Methodist Church (NUMC), to allow us to provide weekly produce to families at YELLS. FSA now offers access to fresh fruits and veggies, and the awesome volunteers at NUMC sort this fresh produce and deliver them to YELLS weekly for our Community Action Café teens to then distribute out to our families at dismissal. This came to be known as Produce Tuesday! This partnership also gave our teens the opportunity to practice skills that they would normally develop through serving customers in the Café by coordinating the deliveries and building relationships with families as they handed the produce to parents each week. The teens even created recipe cards so families could get creative with healthy ways to incorporate the different produce into their meals. All in all, Produce Tuesday has been a great way for YELLS to restore community connections between our Franklin Gateway families while providing them with fresh and healthy produce!

After a few weeks of providing fresh produce to our families, we noticed that we would always have a couple extra bags left over, and we wanted to find a way to give this produce away while still supporting Franklin Gateway residents. We learned that McCleskey-East Cobb Family YMCA organizes their own food drive at the Dwell Apartments across the street from YELLS every Wednesday, and so we partnered with them by donating our extra produce to their food drive! We are very proud of this partnership because it ensures that, even when we aren’t directly helping the families on Franklin Gateway, we can still support the people who are.

As fall rolled on, we continued to think about how we can organize different events that would bring the YELLS community together in a safe way. One such event was Trunk or Treat, which was spearheaded by our wonderful Bilingual Family Engagement Specialist, Christi Graham! This unique Halloween event brought out everyone’s creative side by decorating the trunks of their cars with spooky and exciting stations, from a haunted house to a portal to another dimension!

The pandemic has certainly affected how kids everywhere trick-or-treated, so it was a special moment watching our youth getting excited about Halloween as they walked around in their costumes interacting with the different stations. This event was a huge success and showed us all that we can still come together and have fun while also practicing safe protocols.

Our Community Action Café teens stayed engaged with weekly culinary workshops where they learned to prepare a variety of treats, from nachos to hot chocolate, while also pushing them to think about novel ways to serve their community. Although we couldn’t invite any community members up to the café to enjoy these treats because of our COVID protocols, our teens set up a hot chocolate bar during dismissal to serve to kids and families as they were being picked up. This was a fun way for our CAC teens to gain hands-on experience serving our community while keeping them warm during the cold evenings!

We entered the giving season knowing that there was so much to be thankful for! The Franklin Road Community Association hosted their annual Holidays Around The World Drive-Thru event at the Franklin Gateway Sports Complex, where so many Franklin Gateway families were blessed with presents donated and sorted by our community volunteers!

By the end of the year, we were especially fortunate to have so many (and we mean SO MANY!) gifts and toys donated for our kids from a bunch of different community partners! Special thanks to Marietta Police Athletic League, Home Depot Marietta Technology Center, Parkway One and Two, Bridging The Gap, United Way of Greater Atlanta, and Assurant (phew!) for each going out of their way to find out what our YELLS kids wanted for the holidays, and boy did they deliver on the gifts! Our kids were ecstatic to take home their presents, and it was a real highlight of ours to see so many partners show their love for YELLS like that. Thank you to everyone who donated to YELLS during the holiday season!

Looking Ahead to 2022

As we close the door on everything that we’ve accomplished in 2021, we face this new year with a lot to look forward to! Our Community Action Café teens will be flexing their marketing and culinary muscles as they work towards launching a mobile cafe for the Franklin Gateway community. Hopefully, community members will soon be able to enjoy tasty treats made by the teens that they can pick up outdoors in front of our YELLS building or in spots throughout the community! 

This year, our Mentoring Program Bigs are finally taking the reins and are planning two incredible service projects for the Franklin Gateway community. The first is a single mothers event aimed at supporting single mothers in the community by connecting them with valuable community resources, as well as helping to build a network of mothers willing to support and uplift each other. We are beyond proud of our Bigs for having the awareness and empathy to think of the mothers of our community in this way. We see it as a direct reflection of the values and mentality that we aim to instill in our youth: empowering our youth to believe that they not only possess the skills, but hold the duty, to change their world!

The second event is the Franklin Fair! The Franklin Fair is an annual celebration of the community that sees Franklin Gateway residents come together to eat culturally diverse food from local restaurants and play fun carnival games! This community hasn’t seen a Franklin Fair since the spring of 2019, so for our Bigs and Littles to work hard to bring this event to life will symbolize a significant milestone for them, considering all that they’ve been through.

YELLS Bigs came up with these amazing projects after an extensive exploration of their community. They learned to conduct a community needs assessment where they identified strengths and areas for growth after reflecting on a community-wide scavenger hunt. They also explored a variety of causes by talking with community leaders and activists during our “Cause Tables” event to spark ideas for how they could create meaningful change on Franklin Gateway. Follow this link to learn more about the Mentoring Program journey over the past year and relish all the hard work they have put in!

This year has been a defining one for YELLS. The emergence of the Omicron variant stands as a stark reflection of the unpredictable and cyclical nature of this pandemic, but it also is a testament to our resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity. We will no doubt have some beautiful successes to celebrate this year, and we will also likely face some hardships. But whatever unforeseen obstacles we will encounter in 2022, we will overcome them the same way we have overcome all the others: together.

Introducing YELLS Scholar Dollars!

Here at YELLS, we have always been proud of the various innovative ways that we serve the students in our programs. From our teen-led Community Action Café to the different community projects conceived by the Bigs and Littles in our Mentoring Program, our goal is to instill in our kids the values and confidence for them to assume their own personal and academic growth. With this in mind, we are excited to announce a new initiative recently implemented in our Afterschool Program (ASP): YELLS Scholar Dollars!

The Scholar Dollars program incentivizes our ASP youth to improve their academic enrichment by rewarding their extra effort with YELLS-branded “scholar dollars” that they can use to purchase a host of prizes and special experiences every week, including fidget spinners, bean bag privileges, and even spending an afternoon as a guest in the Community Action Café.     

“The hope in the program is that students are maximizing the academic rotation, whether that is reading more, whether that is completing their homework assignments, or completing additional enrichment activities provided by our scholar success specialist,” said Sherri Burrell, our ASP coordinator and lead teacher. 

This is our Scholar Dollars cart; the one-stop shop for all Scholar Dollar transactions and rewards! Here our ASP kids can use their hard-earned dollars to buy toys, extra snacks, iPad time, and even fun experiences like beanbag privileges and Café time!

In the few weeks that the Scholar Dollars program has been put into place, Ms. Sherri has already noticed tangible improvements in our students’ academic enrichment! She said that more students are completing their homework assignments during the academic block, clocking in more minutes of reading than before, and they’re also reading better. Furthermore, she said students are feeling proud about completing their assignments and earning Scholar Dollars!     

“So far (the kids) have really enjoyed it! I feel that they see it as a way for them to earn the things that they want to earn, but know the importance of getting the academics completed,”  Ms. Sherri said. “I think all of them also really just enjoy being able to earn something for the work that they’ve done, and have other people celebrate that they’re working hard and doing the things that they need to get done.”

Our ASP kids get really excited by Scholar Dollars! You can feel the energy in the room every Wednesday when the kids line up for their turn at the Scholar Dollar Store, where they can buy a host of prizes like snacks, beanbag time, and more!

The Scholar Dollars extend beyond just academic enrichment as well. This initiative gives our ASP kids the opportunity to practice money management skills, and we have seen firsthand how they are learning the benefits to saving their money for more expensive prizes or experiences down the line. Our kids are deciding for themselves whether to treat themselves in the moment or to hold onto their money for something bigger and better.  

“That’s why candy is a dollar. Because even if you just get your homework done, you at least can reward yourself with something later down the line,” said Ms. Sherri. “Or you can say, ‘No, I want something big, I’m gonna do everything every single day.’ Well, that shows some perseverance and that shows determination, that shows that you see a goal and you’re willing to do everything you have to do in order to reach that goal.”

The Scholar Dollars initiative has also been a great opportunity for Community Action Café teens to practice their serving and hospitality skills! When our little ones use Scholar Dollars to purchase time in the Café, our teens are the ones serving snacks and facilitating fun games for the little one’s to play! This is one way that the Café has come back to serve the community since the pandemic halted operations.

As the Scholar Dollar program grows, we are always thinking about different ways to incorporate it into our programming. Our K-1st graders can now earn scholar dollars by practicing good behaviors and habits, further incentivizing them to be aware of their own behaviors from a young age and encouraging healthy social and emotional skills. So far, the Scholar Dollars program has been hugely popular among YELLS students, and we are very excited to see how the initiative will be reflected in our students’ grades at the end of the year!

Volunteer Spotlight – Sarah Gazaway!

We are truly fortunate to have volunteers who come in and work hands-on with our kids, making sure they have the support and resources they need to thrive. This month, we’re spotlighting a special new volunteer who has been leading our ASP kids and CAC teens in valuable social-emotional learning workshops: Sarah Gazaway from Georgia State University’s HAPPI Lab!

Sarah Gazaway is a third year doctoral student in the counseling psychology program at Georgia State, and she has been a part of the HAPPI Lab since 2017. For the past few months, Sarah has been leading positive psychology workshops tailored to both our café teens upstairs and our ASP kids downstairs. These workshops are designed to introduce our kids to the idea of practicing positive psychology as a way to improve their social and emotional health!

“My goal in partnering with YELLS is, in those short amounts of time that we have together, to try to create a practical application of some positive psychology practices, be it gratitude, or humility or forgiveness, that they can practice during the week, either with fellow peers, with their family, or even at their school. And it really rounds it down into how you actually do it and practice it together,” Sarah said. 

The HAPPI LAB

The HAPPI Lab, a.k.a the Humility and the Advancement of Positive Psychology Interventions Lab, was founded by Sarah’s advisor, Dr. Don Davis, with the intention of helping students develop expertise in positive psychology while also researching the benefits that positive psychology can have on people’s wellbeing. Sarah describes positive psychology as “the study of the good life”; strengths-based approaches to living that can help us all develop more meaningful lives! Through this lens, Sarah and the HAPPI Lab began doing outreach to help take what they were learning in the research realm and apply it to different populations. This ultimately led Sarah to connecting with YELLS, where she has since led different workshops for our kids based on their scientific research. 

It’s been amazing to see how our kids have engaged with Sarah’s workshops over the weeks! In one of her lessons, Sarah taught our kids about how to identify positive character strengths in each other, and she adjusted her lesson plan to fit the needs of the teens upstairs and the smaller kids downstairs. Her workshop with the teens was casual and conversational, whereas with the ASP kids her lesson was more structured and high energy, but both workshops got our kids thinking about what it means to possess these character strengths. In another workshop, Sarah talked about how showing gratitude can play a meaningful role in our kids’ happiness and facilitate conversations that strengthen their relationships with family and friends.

“There’s such power in relationships,” said Sarah. “And really relationships where there are mentors, people who can regularly speak into the lives of these kids to say, ‘Here are the strengths I see that you have, and here’s how I see you doing that’, and guiding them, like scaffolding approaches to help them see how they can use those strengths to take a step towards a life that they want to live.” 

“And yet also,” Sarah continues, “I’m presenting content, especially for the high schoolers, that’s actually pretty deep in nature, and not what they usually do. In the gratitude workshop, for example, they’re not usually talking about who’s meant something in their life, and then writing a letter to that person that they may intentionally give to them; that can feel really uncomfortable. So I am definitely pushing them early. And I’ve appreciated any of the space that they’ve allowed that to happen. So I try to not take that for granted.”

As our relationship with the HAPPI Lab continues to grow, Sarah said she’s looking ahead towards expanding the HAPPI Lab’s reach in the community. The HAPPI Lab is developing a content team that Sarah said will create more formalized positive psychology workshops designed for specific age groups and organizations. This team will soon begin creating understandable and entertaining content for all of our YELLS kids, from the kindergarteners to our high schoolers, that aligns with the YELLS principles while still maintaining the freedom to teach this information in the best way possible. Sarah’s hope is to one day go even further by developing positive psychology workshops for our parents as well, as she feels that these practices are most effective when the whole family is engaged with the ideas she’s teaching at YELLS.

“One of the things that’s really great is that I really feel like this partnership is one where I’m just helping bolster that which is already happening at YELLS. That YELLS mission really is a strengths-based model, one of servant leadership, one of helping grow these students to utilize their strengths to serve the community, and in that way, to thrive as individuals. And so that’s wonderful. That’s really what we’re about. So it was a really easy ‘yes’ for me when Laura came and asked, ‘Do you want to partner with us?’, because we really believe in what YELLS was doing.”

Thank you so much to Sarah and the HAPPI Lab for bringing these important positive psychology workshops into YELLS! We look forward to continuing this partnership and seeing how our kids begin to use some of what they’re learning in Sarah’s workshops in their own lives!

Funder Spotlight – Assurant

This month, we would like to highlight one of our incredible funders and partners who was instrumental in YELLS’ return to in-person programming in the summer of 2021. Assurant has been a great supporter of YELLS over the years, always mobilizing their team to give back to our youth, but they really stepped it up last year. In a time of great need and uncertainty for YELLS, this partner took it upon themselves to change our fortunes during a truly difficult time by donating a significant amount of funds to our organization for much-needed repairs. For this reason, we have dedicated this month’s Funder Spotlight to Assurant!

Rewind to August of 2020. YELLS had been closed since March due to the pandemic, with staff only in the space for short periods of time to organize supply drop-offs, food and grocery events, and other family resources while programming remained virtual. Unfortunately, high humidity levels and moisture led to a quick spread of mold that destroyed the carpet in our Afterschool Program space. This posed a serious threat to our operations; there was no way that we could welcome our students back into the building until we found a way to strip the carpet and repair our floors, all of which would cost a small fortune to our organization. We quickly had some amazing volunteers step up to remove the carpeting and address the mold. However, replacing the flooring proved to be much more difficult.

For months our Executive Director, Laura Keefe, strategized to raise funds for this unanticipated project so that we could be ready to open in-person as soon as health conditions allowed.  But then in March of 2021, our partners at Assurant reached out to Laura wondering how they could get more involved with YELLS. Assurant has been a wonderful partner in the past and they really believe in the YELLS mission. So when Laura mentioned to them our struggles with finding the funds to repair our floors, immediately they began brainstorming ways that they could help us out in a big way.

“The kids weren’t back with you guys yet, so they were trying to plan for that. One of the things that she wanted was to be able to have the carpet in by then, and she was explaining how this was an unintended expense for the nonprofit,” said Jill Heibult of Assurant. “And so I was on the call and I was like, ‘well, we could do a fundraiser! I don’t know how it could work but, you know, we could do something like that and see what we could come up with.’ And so we put our brains together at Assurant and decided that we were going to do an event called Fund the Foot.” 

YELLS and Assurant

Jill Heibult is the strategy chair for Assurant’s Employee Engagement Champion Team for the state of Georgia. Assurant has Engagement Champion Teams at various locations that are responsible for identifying volunteer opportunities for their employees to give back to the community, and Jill’s job is to coordinate these efforts by finding community partners to champion. Jill first heard about YELLS four years ago through an annual volunteer campaign that Assurant does in partnership with United Way, and this ultimately led to a strong relationship between Assurant and YELLS over the years.

“We do a volunteer activity each year during our United Way campaign to benefit one of their partners through United Way,” Jill said. “And we got a whole list of (organizations) and we looked through and were like ‘YELLS, this sounds awesome!’ It’s right around our neighborhood in Cobb County, and we loved the mission and the energy of it. We did our first activity, I think that was four years ago. And that was our first opportunity to work with YELLS.”

In the past, Assurant employees have assembled and donated hundreds of snack packs for our YELLS kids, each decorated with hand-drawn doodles and a personalized note. This was such a fun way for Assurant to get involved with YELLS, and our kids loved it! When Jill and her Assurant team proposed the idea for Fund the Foot, we knew that this was going to be a special moment for YELLS considering all the love they have shown us in the past, although admittedly nobody here really knew what to expect!

Fund the Foot

What followed next was incredible! By May of 2021, with only a few weeks before we were set to reopen our doors for summer camp, we managed to replace our floors at a cost to our organization. While it was by no means ideal, ultimately we had no choice but to fund the repairs before our students returned to YELLS.

Around the same time, our partners at Assurant reached out to us with the special announcement that their company-wide fundraising event, Fund the Foot, was in full swing. They told us that the Assurant Foundation, the charitable portion of Assurant Inc., was doing a 2-for-1 match on all employee donations to Fund the Foot, and on top of that they were gifting YELLS with a special grant specifically for our carpet repair!

This was amazing news! And yet, none of us really knew what to expect when Assurant invited the YELLS staff on a Zoom call to announce the amount raised. Needless to say, that call left us all floored! (pun partially intended)

“We thought it might be maybe $1,000 or $2,000, but they presented to us that they raised $12,000! Then, when the check arrived, it ended up being even higher – $16,300!” Laura said. 

All in all, Assurant and the Assurant Foundation donated $16,300 to reimburse YELLS for the cost of installing a new carpet in our building! It is impossible to fully express how grateful we are for this donation, and it went a long way in improving the quality of our services for our families. Ms. Sherri, our Afterschool Program Coordinator, said it made a HUGE difference to the space itself and changed the mood of our building and staff.

“If it hadn’t happened along with being shut down, how would we still be able to run a program while still having our carpet redone? It was really transformative for the space and for us as we got back into the space. It was a big deal!”

And It Doesn’t Stop There!

In classic Assurant fashion, Fund the Foot wasn’t their only contribution to YELLS this year! This past October, Assurant and United Way of Greater Atlanta teamed up to assemble 50 STEAM kits and 50 Literacy kits for our YELLS kids to take home and keep up with their academic enrichment during the holiday breaks! 

As we move forward into a new year, we are looking forward to more ways that YELLS and Assurant can come together to serve our youth and the Franklin Gateway community. Thank you again to Assurant and the Assurant Foundation for their continued support of the YELLS mission and our youth!

Learning, Leading, & Serving – Virtually

This has certainly been a year of many challenges, but it has also reaffirmed the strength of our YELLS Family and the power of community.  We stand in awe of our team who continue to innovate and find new ways to meet the increased and changing needs of our families with grace and creativity.  YELLS staff has organized activity supply drop-offs, delivery of donated books, and parent support and family success check-in calls to provide parents with tools and coping strategies throughout the pandemic.  We’ve also raised funds to provide rent assistance for families and are offering support and referrals to meet other immediate needs (technology, groceries, utilities, mental health, etc.).

Currently, all of our programming is digital to ensure the safety of youth and staff.  Our team is expertly navigating virtual programming, providing engaging workshops, emotional support and wellness, and individualized tutoring daily. They are ensuring our students are successful in digital learning and pouring in love, coupled with tools to help youth and their parents through this challenging time. Check out some of the creative ways each of our programs is working to reach, uplift, and empower youth during this time.

YELLS Mentoring Program

Bigs and Littles are learning new ways to stay connected and build their relationships during this time.  Our amazing Mentoring Coordinator, Brittany, has been super-creative and found safe ways for our youth to connect.  Just like they would in school, Bigs get to eat lunch with each other through “Zoom’fe” sessions to just talk about whatever is on their mind.  To engage Bigs and Littles, we’ve led both a virtual and a socially-distanced, outdoor virtual Paint & Connect event where youth received all the supplies and an expert instructor to lead them in painting beautiful art.

Our Bigs are also inspired to raise their voices in the ongoing struggle for racial justice and equity.  They are in the process of producing a series of interviews and conversations that explore our country’s social unrest on a more personal level and share different perspectives. Our Bigs are hoping to keep the dialogue open and move people to understanding and change.  One of our YELLS alumna and former Bigs, Raigon Wilson, is helping Bigs develop the skills and tools to plan their project effectively.  Hear from Raigon what it means to her to give back and help our Bigs with this project:

YELLS Afterschool Program

The YELLS Afterschool Program has been busy!  Our youth have explored the world on virtual fieldtrips, welcomed special guests like the only female Fire Marshall in New York City, created PSAs, and discovered how they can impact their community starting at home.  Youth are also learning to nurture a growth mindset by turning negative thoughts into “I can” statements.  It’s amazing to see our youth show up on Zoom with excitement each day.  Even for academic support, they are enthusiastic and appreciative to receive one-on-one help from our staff and interns.  Academic enrichment power sessions are tailored to the individual needs of students and pull from a resource bank of interactive activities designed by our Scholar Success Specialist. Through all this work and growth, our youth (and our team, too!) have lots of FUN!  Check out some of K-5th grade youth in action:

YELLS Community Action Café

Our YELLS Community Action Café teens have always prospered from the support system they find in each other, but this has been especially important during this time.  Their strong sense of family has helped them navigate the isolation, fear, frustration and hurt with both the pandemic and heightened reminders of racial injustice. Youth receive daily motivation and are learning coping and mindfulness practices.  Our youth are developing resiliency and a growth mindset as they draw from the strength of each other.  Staff are helping YELLS teens work through their own emotions and find ways they can be a part of the national conversation around racial justice.

Mo Adams from Atlanta United shared how he’s developing his personal brand & how he’s leveraging his platform to address issues of equity and justice.

Café teens are also exploring new models for virtually building community and uplifting their neighbors in the time of social distancing – which is more important now than ever.  They are in the process of interviewing for their “Apprenticeship Team” roles and strategizing how they can work as a team to convert the daily coffee they served in their Café to “virtual coffee cups” of love and empowerment.  In December, they are looking forward to leading an “Uplift-A-Thon” phone bank to call community members and spread joy through gratitude.     

Throughout the pandemic, staff have explicitly modeled mindfulness practices and taught youth about how the brain works. Youth learn that the brain is a tool and we can train it to work to our advantage.  By exploring healthy and unhealthy self-talk and understanding how the brain processes and remembers what it hears repeated, youth can take control of their thoughts. Our youth are more aware of their thinking and use tools like affirmations to choose their thoughts intentionally.  Positive self-talk is an incredibly powerful resource for youth to navigate our current times and provide the foundation for emotional wellness.

Our Shared Impact 2019-2020

Check out our 2019-2020 Impact Report and get inspired by the ways that together we have made a measurable difference for Franklin Gateway youth and their families.  Our work is collaborative and our results draw on the youth + parents + neighbors + staff + partners + advocates + donors who believe in what we do and continuously pour into our Franklin Gateway community.  The YELLS Family is truly powerful, as demonstrated by the many people who came together over this last year to uplift our work:

We’re proud to share the amazing achievements from the 2019-2020 school year, made possible by the hard work and dedication of so many.  We hope you’ll read the full report, but here are just a few highlights to celebrate from the 2019-2020 school year:

  • 100% of YELLS seniors graduated high school this year!
    • 95% of YELLS youth were promoted to the next grade level
  • 88% of youth reported high levels of self-efficacy
  • 93% of YELLS teens agreed they had made a positive impact in their community
  • 88% of parents reported that YELLS is helping their child show more care and kindness
  • 96% of parents felt more connected to their community

Summative Evaluation

We are able to capture this incredible impact through a partnership with Kennesaw State University’s A.L. Burruss Institute for Public Policy and Research. Thanks to our Marietta YELLS 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant, we’ve been able to work with an evaluation team to both capture our successes and help us identify areas for growth.

While the above data captures the impact of all three of our programs, our 2019-2020 Summative Evaluation provides even more in-depth analysis of our two daily programs that are a part of our 21st Century Community Learning Center program. We’re proud to share that we achieved 6 out of 7 grant objectives! These objectives area centered around three core goals:

  1. Improved academic achievement for youth,
  2. Youth develop the soft skills and positive mindset to thrive in school and career, and
  3. Increased parent engagement in their child’s education

Together, we’re truly creating a community center of learning, leading, and serving that puts our Franklin Gateway youth at a competitive edge in school, in the community, and in life.

YELLS Fall 2020 Virtual Programs

This fall, we’re here for you and your family. YELLS is offering Virtual Programs designed to support and empower Franklin Gateway families and help youth rise as community leaders. YELLS is working in close partnership with Marietta City Schools to ensure your child thrives in virtual learning and has the help needed to continue learning and growing.

Here’s how to register:

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STEP ONE: Complete the YELLS Registration Form at https://forms.gle/ucQSW2takPH5nxQg6

STEP TWO: YELLS staff will email you a packet of forms to review, sign, and submit through DocuSign

STEP THREE: Email the following required documents to YELLS at register@YELLSinc.org:

  • Proof of Franklin Gateway residency (recent bill or page of current lease with name and address)
  • Proof of all household income for persons over the age of 18 (2 current and consecutive months of check stubs, signed letter from employer on company letterhead, TANF records, food stamps letter with amount, and/or free and reduced lunch verification)
  • Copies of child’s photo ID, as well as photo IDs for ALL household members
  • Copies of Social Security card for child and ALL household members

Check out Our Virtual Programs:

YELLS will offer our three programs in a virtual format. Our YELLS Team has been working hard to develop unique activities and curriculum to keep youth engaged.

We’re Here to Help!

Let us know how we can help your family! Please contact us with any questions:

Registration Questions: register@YELLSinc.org

Afterschool Program Coordinator: afterschool@YELLSinc.org

Community Action Cafe Teen Program Coordinator: cafe@YELLSinc.org

Mentoring Program Coordinator: mentoring@YELLSinc.org

Phone: 770-367-1982

YELLS Virtual Programming

YELLS is excited to be offering virtual programming for Afterschool Program (K-5th) and Community Action Cafe (9-12th) students through a series of online sessions. Sessions will take place Mon. -Thurs. from Monday, April 20th – May 22nd.

YELLS-Virtual-Programming-Schedule-for-Website-Latest-

Watch this video for a recap of our YELLS parent meeting about virtual programming and resources.

Sparking Youth Into Action

YELLS staff and youth rung in 2020 with New Year’s Eve-themed activities that challenged us to think about how we can grow our skills and spread our impact in 2020. 

While our students were still enjoying their holiday break, our staff met to get a head start in putting the YELLS model into practice. The morning started out with exciting and fun choice activities. Our staff like to play, too! Our staff had the opportunity to experience first hand how we want to welcome our youth when they return. New Year choice activities included: human ring toss, beach towel volleyball, Blink! Card game, four square, firework painting, and flour face challenge (a messy favorite). As the team wound down from all of the fun, they had a chance to reflect on which activities were their favorites and then create a database of new activities for our students’ first day back!

The staff continued learning about ways to engage our youth, and started creating a vision for our youth for the new year. Broken into teams, the staff navigated through a series of challenges designed to model what a fun, engaging, and meaningful lesson could look like. Instead of sitting and discussing or writing out ideas, the staff experienced what it feels like as a student to learn in this environment, and how hands-on activities, in line with the Kolb Experiential Learning Model, inspire creative thinking and meaningful discussion.

The first challenge they faced was a colorfully lit “balloon drop” in which staff had to pop balloons suspended from the ceiling in search of instructions. At this challenge staff reflected on ideas about ways to empower youth to go above and beyond and fulfill their greatness.

Next it was time to “’Toast’ to the YELLS Family” where team members had to throw pieces of toasted bread at a stack of champagne glasses in order to proceed to the next step. Staff discussed ways we can ensure that everyone feels welcomed at YELLS as a part of the YELLS family.

Then it was time to “Spark Youth-Led Community Building” which involved using a lit candle to burn through fishing line, releasing their instructions from the ceiling. Staff reflected on their vision for youth-led community building and community engagement.

Finally, our team had the chance to “Cook up a Third Place” in which they got to create their own croissant with fillings of their choice while discussing their ideas and vision for the Community Action Cafe and how it can truly be a space that welcome community.

All of these activities came together to help staff remember our values and inspire them to empower our youth to live these in their lives and in our community. Our staff then had the chance to meet with their programs as a team to put this into action and plan an exciting New Year’s Eve themed welcome back for our students!

Before the team knew it, it was time to welcome our students back for their first day of the semester! As our students entered on their first day back, they were welcomed with music, games, and lots of new choice activities to choose from! Some of our teens were even brave enough to try the flour face game!

Next our high school students had the opportunity to “knock out” what they wanted to leave behind in 2019, as they stepped into the boxing ring. They also celebrated their accomplishments of the past year.

Then it was time for our high school students to put a lot of trust in their friends (and us!) as they were broken into groups and blindfolded, preparing to go on a journey of teamwork challenges, without their sense of sight. Each team navigated the Cafe by following a string that was strung from room to room. They cautiously relied on each other with only the string to guide them. 

First up, they had to find 6 cups before building a cup tower. This was challenging, but it got more difficult from there. They followed the guiding string to the back room. Once there, they were given five spoonfuls to blindly taste. As a team they had to identify something spicy (jalapeno), sweet (chocolate pudding), salty (pretzel), sour (warhead candy), and bitter (grapefruit juice) using their senses of smell and taste. At the next destination they had to use their sense of touch and dig through a bowl of dry rice and find 5 small safety pins. It’s harder than it looks! After they completed this challenge they navigated to their final challenge using the string. Once they were in the conference room, one team member was secretly given a word. The group had to line up, one behind the other, as they drew the word on each other’s backs. Once the word got to the front of the line, that student drew what they thought the word was on the wall, all while blindfolded! This was by far the hardest challenge for the students, but they had successfully completed their journey!

Once they made it back to the front of the Cafe and their eyes had a chance to adjust, the students had time to debrief and learned that when you don’t have a vision(or are blindfolded) it makes it much harder to accomplish your goals. They were then able to started writing out their vision for 2020, and broke that vision down into manageable goals.

Our K-5th students stayed just as busy downstairs as they began to explore their emotions and learn about different feelings. Youth identified different emotions by placing raindrops under each “feeling” category. Next, they’ll learn skills for how to regulate their emotions effectively. This is just the start of our students understanding the theme for the month, “We Create Peace,” and the importance of connecting with their emotions so that they can “create peace” in the year ahead.

It was time to celebrate! Keeping with tradition, both age groups had a blast counting down to the new year! The students toasted to the new year with sparkling grape juice, music, and a New Year’s count down. Both students and staff are looking forward to a wonderful 2020 full of vision and purpose!

Happy New Year!

Full Plates & Hearts at Teen-Led Community Dinner

In case you missed it, our teens hosted a tremendously successful Community Dinner to help us close out the year. This was a huge service learning opportunity for our Community Action Cafe Scholars and Mentoring Bigs, as they learned first hand what it takes to hold a successful event of this magnitude.  We are super proud of their efforts and the resulting event. We are also very thankful to our community for showing up for this event and our kids!

Our students created flyers and canvassed the community, being sure to invite community members, apartment managers, and local businesses on Franklin Gateway. They also practiced drafting professional emails in order to invite other Marietta business leaders, local political figures, and school representatives. They were so excited to see what a huge turn out they had. As you can see from the pictures, the building was packed! 120+ community members and guests joined us, and space quickly became limited, but this was a good problem to have, and the community had no problem squeezing in together with their neighbors to accommodate all of our guests. 

The students also solicited donations from neighboring restaurants, receiving delicious contributions from Franklin Gateway restaurants: La Iguala Meat Market, Soul Food Train, and Golden Tropics Jamaican Restaurant. Our parents and community members also contributed dishes for this potluck style event, and everyone left very satisfied after sampling all of the yummy offerings.

This dinner was about more than just good food. The YELLS teens thought about every detail, including discussion questions that they developed and placed in the center of each table inspiring meaningful connections and partnerships between Franklin Gateway neighbors and businesses. The students strategically dispersed themselves at separate tables so that they could guide conversations between people. Each student had a role, whether is was to serve, welcome guests, capture memories in the photo booth, spark conversations or share testimonials of their achievements at YELLS on the mic. Thank you to Theron Furr, our teen Co-CEO for doing a great job as Master of Ceremonies at the event. It was not an easy task with it being such a packed house, but he kept the energy high the entire night!

Many of our K-5th ASP youth were also in attendance, and they enjoyed the event so much that they decided to model their own service project after this one, in which they created flyers to secure food donations that they would then serve to their younger peers during their holiday celebration. Our high school students did a great job of inspiring our younger students and showing them first hand how to be servant-leaders!

Our students from the K-5 scholars up through our graduating seniors are busy planning many more community events for the Spring. Be sure to keep in the loop for our Community Action Cafe Thursday night community events, and our Mentoring Program community service projects. You will not want to miss what they have in store!