Category: Afterschool Program

Partner Spotlight: Parkway One and Two

This past holiday season was filled with many generous donations and gifts. We want to give special recognition to our neighboring businesses at Parkway One and Two for the huge outpouring of love they decided to give our students this year. Parkway One and Two reached out to us to let us know that the tenants and their employees were interested in hosting an Angel Tree that would benefit our YELLS families. This was a first for them and YELLS, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. 

Parkway One and Two went above and beyond in helping to coordinate this undertaking and make sure that each of our students was matched with a generous donor who purchased an item from our students’ wish lists. Employees from AmerisBank, The University Financing Foundation, Waste Management, and WellStar all participated in making the holidays extra bright for our families. 

At the end of the collection period, we went to pick up the gifts. As we turned the corner, we were in awe of the mountain of gifts in front of us, all carefully wrapped in festive red bows. It was amazing to see how strangers who have never met our families were willing to be so selfless and generous in their gifts to our students. As we started looking through the gifts to figure out how to transport all of the goodies back to YELLS, we realized that most of these donors had purchased not one, but multiple items for each of our students. One of our students even received a bike! What a tremendous blessing this was!

Unfortunately, our staff have come accustomed to many of our families expressing just how tough times have been lately, and the holidays make that financial strain even more apparent. But the generosity of Parkway One and Two tenants and its employees made it a very merry Christmas for our families. Thank you to the tenants of Parkway One and Two and their employees for your big hearts and for choosing to support of our Franklin Gateway families!

Volunteer Spotlight: Mr. Dan

Our daily volunteers are a very important part of the YELLS team. Volunteers are needed to help make sure that everything runs smoothly and our kiddos receive the individual guidance to help them learn and grow.

Dan Moore, affectionately referred to as Mr. Dan, came to YELLS last year as a retiree looking for a place to donate some of his time. He learned of YELLS through some neighbors who lived in the area. Mr. Dan jumped right into the hustle and bustle with all of our kids, and now he is a rock star of managing the homework room, joining us at least twice a week. It is clear that he genuinely cares about our students’ success, which we greatly appreciate! He takes the time to work one-on-one with each student during homework time. His commitment and quality time spent with each student is so valuable, and is exactly the type of dedication that we need to help our students be successful. When asked why he keeps coming back, he said that he really enjoys interacting with the kids and seeing the difference he is able to make in their academics. Our staff even occasionally consult with him to find out how students are doing with their assignments. He is able to share valuable insight because he is a regular that sees our students often and cares about helping them to be their best.

He’s handy, too! When Mr. Dan noticed that we needed a place to hang our students’ reading certificates, he brought the supplies and hung a new cork wall in our homework room. When he noticed that a wall needed to be repainted, he offered some extra paint he had laying around and came to touch up the wall in his spare time. When he noticed that a few of our ceiling tiles needed to be replaced, he generously offered some extras from his home and helped us to replace them.

Mr. Dan is so committed to the achievement of our youth that he’s even working to recruit more volunteers like him! He wants to see every student receive the one-on-one support and attention they deserve.

When asked to share a favorite interaction with a YELLS student, he shared these moments with us:

YELLS student to Mr. Dan: “You dress nice.”
Mr. Dan: “Why thank you, why do you say that?”
YELLS student: “Because of the little animals on your shirt.”

One night during dismissal, students were given pizza once their parents arrived to pick them up. One student asked Mr. Dan, “Is your mother coming to pick you up?”

Thank you, Mr. Dan, for your dedication to helping our YELLS students succeed!

Partner Spotlight: Advanced MD, Assurant Solutions, and United Way

We want to give a big shout out to three of our partners, Advanced MD, Assurant Solutions, and United Way! Each of them played a role in making a very special afternoon for our students!

Advanced MD, a Global Payments company, first came to YELLS in 2017, and we are so happy that they keep coming back! The company organizes days of service in order to give back to the community throughout the year, and we are so fortunate that they continue to choose YELLS as a partner. This time they brought a group of 10 members to help to maintain an organized and uplifting space for our students to focus and learn in. We also had a few Global Payments team members stay to spend time with our K-5th grade students. Our kids enjoyed having new energetic volunteers to play games with and to help them with their homework.

We have been teaching our K-5th graders about the 5 Love Languages and helping them to discern which love languages pertain to them. For many of our students “Words of Affirmation” really help to encourage them to be all that they can be. The Global Payments team wrote an uplifting note for each one of our 55 K-5th graders. These special notes were taped to their cubbies as an exciting surprise when they got off of the school bus. The kids were so excited that someone would take the time to write a special message just for them! We were then able to discuss the power of uplifting others and words of affirmation with our youth. They will remember these messages for a long time to come.

Thank you, Advanced MD, for choosing to make an impact in the lives of YELLS youth!

To sweeten the pot even more, YELLS was thrilled to be a part of a snack pack making event hosted by Assurant and United Way. Thank you Assurant for assembling and donating 200 snack packs filled with a juice box, granola bar, gold fish, fruit snacks, and a fruit cup – each bag decorated with a hand-drawn doodle or message. What a treat! Advanced MD volunteers helped us to distribute the snack packs into each student’s cubby as a special surprise, along with their notes.

Partnership is all about teamwork. Thank you to each of these partners for playing a part in making a very special afternoon for our students! Teamwork makes the dream work!

Community Champion Leads Mixer & Inspires Neighbors

“This will not be my last one,” YELLS Achievement Club member and Franklin Gateway resident excitedly shared as she closed out her first community mixer.  Brenda Gregory, a grandmother of one of our YELLS youth, hosted her first community mixer as a part of her chosen Achievement Club goals, and it was a major success. As a testament to the power of United Way’s Achievement Club model, Ms. Brenda merged her own personal growth with a plan to uplift and strengthen her neighborhood.

Numerous community members and members of neighboring communities came to support the event.  Attendees did not know just how much they would gain from this mixer, titled “The Removal of the Mask” … but with many tears shed and unveiling of stories, Ms. Brenda’s inspirational event helped to continue that positive shift of changing lives in the Franklin Gateway community.

This event was a true community mixer, allowing community members a chance to share their perspectives and combine their stories for healing and understanding.  Ms. Brenda facilitated the event by inviting a panel of three other individuals willing to share their stories. The motivational panelists included a YELLS Community Action Café alumna, Yadeihja Butler, community Minister Robert Wright, and Mechelle Stephens, author of Unmasked and Unashamed.

 

Ms. Brenda did an amazing job incorporating various parts of the community in her event.  She created a welcoming platform for different age ranges within the community and various YELLS parents and adults, as well as youth, current and alumni, were brought in to help make this event a success.  Our YELLS teens worked with our elementary youth to create various masks that would be placed along the walls to decorate the event space.

Greatly spread among the audience were Brenda’s fellow Achievement Club members.  With her final remarks, she stated how difficult it was to continue with this goal, and how she thought many times about calling it off. She continued on to express her gratitude toward her family and YELLS staff, Christina Rodriguez and Renelda Batts, who continuously pushed her forward toward this goal: “I used to be afraid to speak out. I was afraid to continue with this event, but I wanted to give back to this community and the people that have inspired me to do this. This will not be my last one!”

We’re so proud of Ms. Brenda’s hard work!  As a true Community Champion, she is leading grassroots change, healing, and transformation.

Volunteer Spotlight: Jenny, Cameron, and DJ

YELLS is so fortunate to have such amazing volunteers. This month, we want to thank the volunteer team that gave up their entire weekend to join us at Camp Blue Ridge for our Servant Leadership Retreat.  DJ, Cameron, and Jenny all started in different places at YELLS, but joined forces to make this special weekend a success.

Jenny, started with us as an Afterschool Program volunteer in 2016. After taking a short break from volunteering to focus on school, we are so happy that she has rejoined us as an intern in the Community Action Café! She said she was nervous at first about making the switch from helping with K-5th graders to High School students, but she is already helping to encourage our older students through challenging assignments.

Cameron started as a volunteer in our Mentoring program last school year. He has been a dedicated mentor, helping to show our high school “Bigs” what it means to be a good role model to others.  He took his role with us as a team leader on the retreat very seriously, leading his district to victory with the most points earned at the end of the weekend.

DJ is our newest volunteer in the Community Action Café. He joined us just a few weeks ago wanting to assist our Café scholars with their math homework. When asked to join us on the retreat, he jumped at the chance. DJ has an “all-in” attitude that has already connected with our teens as he continuously works to support and build relationships with them.

Thank you Jenny, Cameron, and DJ for being such amazing role models for our teens and support to our staff and community!

 

Youth Spotlight: Syriah Fields

Servant-leadership is at the core of YELLS’s ideology, and our scholars learn to embody this principle through various fun activities and academic lessons.  One of our 1st grade students, Syriah Fields, has gone “above & beyond” (another one of our core values!) from the start of the school year. Each day after homework completion, Syriah reads with her friend Llary. While this might sound like a normal task, these young scholars have their own system in place.

With improved fluency and phonemic awareness levels, Syriah leads the reading experience. “It’s great to see a student choose to help another student without making a big deal about it. Llary’s confidence has improved, too” shares Ms. Autumn, AmeriCorps VISTA member. The duo points to each word together and practices new sounds. At the end of each sentence, they repeat the process until Llary and Syriah both read each sentence at the same speed. As a student who has received individualized support in reading through tutoring services from Achieve Through Education (ATE), Llary has had much experience with paired reading. What her partner Syriah offers is a level of relatability and fun through working with a friend! By using her strength in reading to support a fellow YELLS member, Syriah demonstrates the power of servant-leadership in everyday moments.

Not only is Syriah a helpful peer and teacher-in-the-making, but she also knows how to spread kindness through art.  Syriah uses her creative skills to make pictures and cards with memos for other scholars and teachers. By including positive affirmations like “You are nice” and “love YELLS,” Syriah continues to uplift others and pour positivity into those around her. We are excited to see more ways that Syriah empowers other scholars throughout the school year, which, in exchange, builds upon her own identity to be a true servant-leader.

“Books & Breakfast” Strengthens Family Literacy

Our community took a multi-generational approach to reading this summer with our “Books and Breakfast” Family Literacy initiative. Each day, as parents brought their kids to summer camp, we offered a special opportunity to enjoy breakfast and a book together with their children.  Over breakfast, families would learn a new skill for promoting literacy and creating a supportive reading environment at home.  Then, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and siblings shared in the joy of reading together!

This strategy helps parents participate and celebrate family literacy. Research stresses the significant role a home environment that supports literacy plays in helping children develop literacy skills.  This shared reading promotion and celebration created a culture of learning and increased direct reading contact time, while positively shaping youths’ perceptions of reading and building camaraderie among families.

Even the family dog can join in the reading fun!  We brought our furry YELLS mascot to motivate our kiddos to read even more throughout the summer.  Read-alouds are one of the simplest, yet most effective ways for youth to develop reading proficiency. However, youth often feel insecure and self-conscious when reading aloud. We’ve discovered an unconventional approach to overcome these inhibitions to the point that youth beg for the chance to read!  Once each week during the summer, the “YELLS Reading Dog,” Flyer, visited YELLS for our young scholars to read to one-on-one.  Flyer made reading becomes a treat, and this will impact students’ reading attitudes for life.

At YELLS, reading is definitely fun for the WHOLE family!

Celebrating Our Beloved Mr. Tim

Mr. Tim is the embodiment of the YELLS Family and a true servant-leader.  He joined our YELLS team as one of the first two official staff members when we started our daily YELLS Afterschool program in 2011.  He’s grown in his leadership as he’s shaped each one of our programs and each one of our youth over the years.  We’ve been incredibly blessed to have Mr. Tim with us for most of his adult life, we’re thrilled he grew his family by finding his future wife at YELLS, and we’re proud of him for taking the leap to his next big journey.  During his time at YELLS he’s been involved in every program – he began as our YELLS Afterschool Program Leadership Instructor with our little ones and grew to serve as our incredible Teen Program Manager with the Community Action Cafe, and he’s volunteered at every signature event and community program along the way.  Mr. Tim has left a lasting mark on every member of our YELLS Family, and we know he’ll continue to do great things!  Check out the photos and video memories below to see just a little peak at the legacy left by Mr. Tim.

 

During Mr. Tim’s last week, he got to see three students from his very first year at YELLS. They’re now in high school and continuing to give back to their community!

Youth Spotlight: Nashely Baez

At YELLS, we celebrate our creative, industrious, and talented youth leaders!  YELLS Scholars are equipped to nurture their strengths and talents and work together toward common goals, even the fun and sticky ones!

We’re so proud of our recent Lockheed Elementary school graduate, Nashely Baez, and her entrepreneurial endeavors she launched while at YELLS.  Nashely’s creativity allowed her to spread the opportunity for others to have fun with … SLIME!  She became quite the young businesswoman, marketing her slime, fulfilling custom orders, and bringing fun and joy to her peers in the process.  In her interview, Nashely reveals her knowledge and resource base, as well as the decision-making for her business:

Nashely Baez

Nashely knows a successful entrepreneur must work and study hard!

Q: First, random question just for fun: do you prefer polka dots or stripes?
A: Polka dots because they look like donuts or something.

Q: Do you know why you were chosen for this interview?
A: Because a lot of kids like slime, and I like slime, and I like making it.

Q: Which kinds of slime do you make?
A: I make clear slime, fluffy slime, glitter slime, cloud slime, glossy slime – this type of slime called milk slime – I sometimes make jiggly slime, and I also make this slime called cream cheese slime…but it’s not made from real cream cheese but it’s called that for some reason.

Q: Do you use directions or do you have the recipes memorized?
A: Recipes memorized. It’s so easy!

Q: Describe your favorite slime.
A: My favorite slime – my current favorite slime – is cloud slime because my neighbor gave me some of this instant snow powder and I made cloud slime and it felt so good! I loved it since then.

Q: How does your business work?
A: The person will write down which slime they want and the color. They could also write the size, but right now I do not have big containers…my mom said she will buy some for me. I want to go to Food Depot that’s where I get the 50 cent containers.

Q: What inspired you to sell slime? 
A: Wait, a quick fact! When I was 8 years old I also wanted to make slime and I kept mixing shampoo. Then I asked my mom to buy me the ingredients. First time, I made it bad but then I got better, but then I wasted all my money.

Q: Why do you think people like your slime?
A: Because it’s unique and it’s really fun to play with. And they like how I put it in containers and not zip lock bags. I used to do that but since I discovered containers, my mom bought them for me and I used them since then. I get inspiration from these people on YouTube who sell slime. Their slime is perfect! Just for 6 oz. slime, they pay $13, but I do not do that. Since everyone in my school is broke and cheap, they don’t want me to sell them slime for $2, so I sell it for $1, but if I had my shop online I’d sell it for $2 or $3.

Q: Do your friends or family help you make and sell the slime? Or is it on your own?
A: On my own.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share?
A: I like selling it and I have my own slime making station at home.

Nashely is building her toolkit as a young engineer and entrepreneur!

Partner Spotlight: Life University

Life University transformed our entire Mentoring Program site back in 2012!

We’ve been blessed by the students and staff of Life University over the years.  They’ve mobilized groups to paint our spaces, help our youth turn the soil of their community garden, and serve during all types of community days and special projects.  We’ve been blown away by how supportive the team at Life University has been.  Ever since Rebecca Koch, Director of Service Initiatives, learned about YELLS in our early years, she’s connected us with just about every department and club to keep volunteers and groups of students serving in our Franklin Gateway community.  One Life University student shared, “It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a community to make a village.”  We’re fortunate to have Life U in our village!

 

 

Over the past several years, Life University has expanded our village and helped to grow the YELLS family by providing us with some of the very best college students to help support our scholars through the Federal Work Study program. The Federal Work Study program provides part-time work for undergraduate students with financial need, removing the burden of finding an off-campus job as they complete their degree. While these are often thought of as only on-campus jobs, Life University has partnered with YELLS to provide off-campus job opportunities for students to work in our programs.

 

Life University FWS student, Morgan, came out to support our YELLS Mentoring Program Bigs during the Franklin Gateway Soccer Tournament they organized last spring.

One of those amazing Federal Work Study students, Morgan Pierce, has been a dedicated, talented, and hardworking member of the YELLS family since November 2016. Although her title at YELLS is “Youth Tutor” her role here is so much more than that. She supports every aspect of our K-5th grade Afterschool Program, earning the additional titles of music, art, and outdoor choice club leader, homework room manager, summer camp counselor, and overall program assistant, to name a few. She takes on every opportunity and challenge she’s given with a tremendously positive and uplifting attitude, always being a perfect role model of core values at YELLS.  Morgan says “it’s the Ah-ha moments and the big hugs when the kids run off the school bus to greet me each day” that keep her eager to come back. You can often hear the kids loudly yelling her name, “Hi Miss Morgan!” as they excitedly meet her to share about their day.

Recently, Morgan has helped to grow our YELLS family even more by recruiting her roommate, Gillian Seibert, to join us as the newest member to the team.  Life University has embraced YELLS, and their students truly make our work a family endeavor.  Other amazing Federal Work Study students like Franchescia Conyers-Cole, or “Mama Freska,” have brought their own families into the fold – her twin daughters served as camp counselors this summer!  Netherland Joiner, another amazing FWS student, has mobilized her friends and network to connect with us as well.  Thank you, Life University, for your undying dedication and support!

Federal Work Study students, Morgan and “Mama Freska,” help youth learn and grow each day.