YELLS is blessed with so many partners that pour into our youth and community and make our work possible. Often when we think about these amazing partners, our first impulse is to consider those that work directly with our youth. But the truth is that partners come in all shapes and sizes, and it’s extra special to see partners contributing to YELLS in their own way, even if they don’t directly work in youth empowerment. These partners think outside of the box to harness their gifts and resources to contribute and make a significant impact on our day-to-day operations. This month, we would like to recognize a new partner who fits this mold, and that is Chris Roupp with Synergy Systems and Solutions!
Chris is the Managing Partner of Synergy Systems and Solutions, a copier company based in Atlanta. A few years ago, in the early days of building his company, Chris found himself walking through Franklin Gateway and introducing himself to different local businesses, offering his services if needed. It was during this walk that Chris first stumbled upon YELLS, and what started as a simple conversation about printing services quickly evolved into a broader discussion about the YELLS mission and how we empower our youth to give back and serve their community. Chris said that something about that initial conversation struck a familiar chord in him.
“So my whole family are educators. And I sell copiers. But I have a strong leaning toward that, and toward the purpose of what you guys are trying to accomplish. So as soon as I got that feeling, then I was like, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m finally in a position where I get to make decisions about what I want to do for supporting organizations and stuff.’ It’s not like I’ve got a ton of income coming in. We just started probably weeks before I first stopped in to see YELLS. But what I can do is I can give you a copier, and I can give you services associated with it. So that’s the piece that I can provide.”
At the time, YELLS didn’t have an immediate need for a free copier. But a few years later, our Executive Director, Laura, did reach back out to Chris asking if his offer was still on the table, and a month ago Chris personally came to YELLS to install a brand new copier along with associated services like ink cartridges at no cost to our organization! The donated copier and printing savings has been a game changer, allowing us to print the resources we need for engaging lessons and the fliers our youth create to promote their events for our community. The incredible value of this contribution is felt every day. This kind gesture was not lost on us, and it further served to remind us that the work we do isn’t lost on those who cross paths with our organization.
“Part of my vision when I opened up the company is that when it comes to being a member of an association to support, I wanted to pick two that I really believed in and go full bore with those two,” Chris explained. “And very similar, I’m not going to donate copiers all over town. I’m not doing this to get my name out there or to be able to name drop or earn more business; I’m doing it because I really believe in the mission of what you guys are trying to accomplish. I probably meet with 100 different businesses every day, and I’m sure 99 of them would love to have a donated copier. But it really has to be something that speaks to me and also, on the selfish end, fills that void of doing something to be able to help out in that education space that I’m not fully contributing to.”
Moving forward, Chris sees a couple of ways for this partnership to continue growing. He has always been a firm believer that sales can be a great equalizer for a lot of people, and expressed interest in possibly leading workshops with our Community Action Cafe teens about the power of sales as a viable career path. Many of the YELLS values that we aim to instill in our youth, values like self-respect, having a growth mindset, and a willingness to always improve, also correlate to success in a sales field. Chris thinks giving teens alternative options on how to proceed in life can go a long way in helping them get to where they want to go.
We’re very grateful to Chris Roupp and his generous donation to YELLS! Sometimes what makes a great partner is simply an appreciation of the values we share, and a willingness to contribute to our mission. Although Chris doesn’t work in youth empowement, his actions just go to show that these shared values can transcend industries.
“For me, I’m not an educator like the rest of my family. But these are little things that I can do along the way, in order to still get back to what I believe is a righteous cause.”
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!
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- PersonSummer 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!
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.
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!
Justin has been a part of the Community Action Café program for his entire high school career. He is a May 2020 graduate, and the YELLS staff could not be more proud of all that he has accomplished. We’ve been blessed to watch Justin grow in so many ways. Hear from Justin how the YELLS Community Action Café has impacted his life:
Justin came to us in his Freshman year, very shy and unsure of himself. Slowly, he began to find his voice and prosper as he experienced real leadership and felt pride as he led community events. He used to be nervous when talking in front of guests or even his peers. If you ask him now, he attributes much of his confidence and networking skills to pep talks from YELLS staff and professionalism workshops during YELLS programming. By his Junior year, he was the first one to volunteer to speak on stage or welcome a guest. Rather than hiding in the background, he started stepping forward to network with community members, and he eventually became our teen CEO.
Justin “knocking out” his goals and celebrating his achievements!
Justin struggled with school and had to work for his grades. The confidence and purpose he gained in his service work in the YELLS CAC transferred to his school work – and he refused to give up when he struggled. Even when he wanted to quit, he thrived on the encouragement of his peers and staff, and persevered, taking advantage of every moment with our tutors.
When you know you have purpose and you know you’re making a difference in your community, you fight harder for your own goals because you believe you can achieve them. Justin graduated this past school year with all A’s and B’s! We are so proud of him and excited for his future.
Justin, your whole YELLS Family is proud of you, and we know you’ll continue to accomplish amazing things!
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.
Check out our 2019-2020Impact Report and get inspired by the ways that togetherwe 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:
Improved academic achievement for youth,
Youth develop the soft skills and positive mindset to thrive in school and career, and
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.
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.
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
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.
Heidi Dasinger from Marietta Power & Water has been a long time supporter of YELLS. We want to give her a big shoutout for volunteering to bring a truly unique and valuable experience to our YELLS teens. Heidi knew that our YELLS Community Action Cafe teens work hard to develop their professional and leadership skills through the operation of their Community Action Cafe, and she thought of a way to help them develop these skills even further.
Heidi invited the Leadership Cobb Class of 2019 to join our YELLS students for a Professionalism Panel. During the panel, each Leadership Cobb Professional shared valuable insight and experience about their professional lives. They kept the atmosphere light-hearted and engaging for our high-school students, sharing their most embarrassing professional moments, and then giving crucial advice for our students about how to deal with professional faux-pas.
They also shared messages about the importance of displaying a professional image and the key to developing and maintaining professional relationships, before opening up the discussion to our teens for questions. By the end of the event, our teens were eager to continue networking with our guests. It is evident that our teens learned a lot during this experience and frequently ask when Heidi and her group can come back for a visit! Thank you, Heidi, for always thinking of us, and being dedicated to providing such valuable experiences for our youth!
YELLS wants to give a big shout out to Kim Gresh and S.A. White Oil Company for being such a generous supporter. Kim kicked off our “Be a Voice for Marietta Youth” fundraising campaign as our first Community Champion level sponsor.
Kim Gresh (in pink) enjoys a tour led by YELLS Afterschool Program 5th grader, Kamari Bursey, and YELLS Community Action Cafe Senior, Justin Virgle, with other community leaders before the Gateway Marietta CID meeting on January 21, 2020.
She had another surprise in store for us during the Gateway Marietta CID Meeting that was held at YELLS in January. YELLS Executive Director, Laura Keefe, provided a presentation about the impact of our work at YELLS and the funding gap we’ve experienced after the elimination of the Cobb County Non-Profit grant. Youth and parents also had the opportunity to share what YELLS means to them. When Laura shared that we were just $3,654 from meeting our $30,000 fundraising goal, this sparked Kim into action… She offered ANOTHER generous donation to close out our campaign and surpass our campaign goal! Our students and staff were blown away, and we can’t thank her enough for her generosity and support in helping to ensure that YELLS will be able to continue pouring into the youth and community of Franklin Gateway!
Kim Gresh and S.A. White Oil Company aren’t only champions of YELLS, but of our whole Cobb community. They make it a priority to invest in local non-profits and the work that helps our community thrive. Kim is active on the Cobb Community Foundation board, and many other charitable causes as well. She’s also committed specifically to our Franklin Gateway community as a member of the Gateway Marietta CID board.
Thank you, Kim and S.A. White Oil Company, for being a Community Champion for YELLS and believing in our youth and the power of servant-leadership.
YELLS allowed me to see that all people have something to offer.
Imani, YELLS Big
I take everything I learned from YELLS everywhere I go. Your vision is truly being lived out through students like me.
Jonah, YELLS Big
The kids don’t always talk about their day at school, but they always want to talk about their day at YELLS.
Tosha Freeman, Afterschool Program Parent
The kids out here [on Franklin Road] are all looking for a better future, and we help them find that better future.
Ashami, Hospitality and Service Team Member
It’s all positive energy in here!
Devin, YELLS Graduate
It makes you feel good to give back.
Devin
When we first came to America we were timid. When we came to YELLS my mentality changed… YELLS has helped me to keep my family together and organized. Taking care of kids by YELLS is wonderful!
Patience Ehehom, YELLS advocate since 2012
At [the Community Action Café] we get people who sacrifice so much for us, and that motivates us to help those around us.
Tori
Because we learn about the community [from community members] we are more knowledgeable about the needs of the community.
Tori
The way people see you changes when you help them address a problem in the community.
