Community Action Café – Page 4

Funder Spotlight: GaDOE’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers

If you haven’t heard the big news, YELLS is a 21st Century Community Learning Center! After many years of applying for this game-changing federal grant through the Georgia Department of Education, our perseverance was rewarded with funding beginning in the 2017-2018 school year. The City of Marietta graciously serves as the fiscal agent for this five-year grant that strengthens our partnership with Marietta City Schools and positions us to move the needle for our youth’s academic success. This collaborative, community-centered approach unites all stakeholders to bridge school, home, and community, resulting in 1) improved academic achievement for youth, 2) youth with the soft skills and positive mindset to thrive in school and career and 3) increased parent engagement in their child’s education.

: Our 21st CCLC has a focus on literacy as a foundation for helping youth throughout their educational career. We find fun ways to build reading skills like our YELLS Reading Dog for one-on-one read-alouds!

: Parent engagement is integral for children’s academic success, and 21st CCLC allows us to foster this through our “Books & Breakfast” Family Literacy program.

Ask any YELLS student, parent, staff, volunteer or supporter and they’ll tell you YELLS is synonymous with “Being a Leader!” From our inception, YELLS has utilized our servant leadership program model to develop leaders who capitalize on their assets while building their skills, in spite of their challenges. However, while our youth rise as servant leaders who invest in their community, they were still struggling personally in school.

: We build a growth mindset within youth through engaging, hands-on activities that develop critical thinking and foster team work.

: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” to keep our teens from achieving their goals when we work together! A holistic approach to youth development equips youth with the positive mindset and efficacy needed to overcome past failures and begin to envision and ultimately actualize their own success.

Of course, we always provided homework help and creative academic lessons to help our youth grow academically. Now, though, as the Marietta YELLS 21^st Century Community Learning Center, we’re supplementing our current YELLS Afterschool and Community Action Cafe programs through thoughtfully designed academic interventions informed by a stronger, more purposeful connection to school-day learning. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant funds two new, innovative positions that bridge school-day learning with our work at YELLS. A Scholar Success Specialist for our

Working hard during Genius Hour

elementary youth and Business Scholar Success Coach for our teens can be found during the school day visiting Marietta City Schools and connecting with teachers and our Scholars’ curriculum. After school, they bring this knowledge back to inform their work with our YELLS Scholars as well as the work of an academic team, including a Reading Instructor, English Language Arts Specialist, and Math Specialist. Academic support continues to utilize the YELLS hands-on and interactive delivery style, with lessons and interventions now targeted to better address identified student needs, in real time. These YELLS team members provide case management and support and offer academic interventions, but ultimately empower our youth to own their educational success, the same way they own their community’s success. Check out the music video our teens made to see how community-building fuels this motivation for personal achievement for our teens:

This first year of funding has been an adventure and a learning experience for sure! The federal reporting requirements and guidelines accompanying this funding are quite intensive, yet well worth the resources they bring to support our youth. We’re proud to report we passed our first monitoring visit with flying colors. The Georgia Department of Education lauded our successful first-year implementation, sharing: “Program leadership has a vested interested in providing quality programming to students and is wiling to do whatever it takes to have a successful program.” They specifically called out our incredible retention rate of 126.67% regular attendees and long-term engagement over our promised enrollment. Another benefit of the 21st CCLC grant is funding to engage professional evaluators to assess our programs. This new partnership with the KSU A.L. Burruss Institute of Public Policy and Research provided invaluable feedback and data analysis to help us assess the effectiveness of our interventions and revise and strengthen our strategies. We successfully achieved 7/10 of our objectives. Some highlighted achievements include:

82.1% (of 95 youth) improved by one letter grade (or more or maintained an A or B) in math or language arts.
92.7% (76/82 surveyed youth) of youth reported improvement in at least one soft skill.
77.6% of elementary-school youth reported that they have made better choices since participating in YELLS
83.9% of high school teens agreed they can get what they want by working hard
88.9% of parents report that YELLS helps them feel more connected to their community
75.4% of parents indicated that they have learned at least one new strategy to support their child’s education at home

Keeping learning fun and engaging!

The full Summative Evaluation is available here. Overall, these results demonstrate great progress, especially considering that 87% of our high school youth were failing a core subject at the start of the school year. In this first year of implementation, we’ve laid the foundation to better understand the academic needs of our youth and are well-equipped to improve and grow our impact in year two!

: YELLS youth strengthened their academic skills this summer thanks to 21st CCLC funding supporting our first full-day summer program!

: Our YELLS Summer Program provided opportunities for STEAM in addition to our core focus on literacy.

We are so grateful to the Georgia Department of Education for their investment in our community and the City of Marietta for leading this initiative as fiscal agent for this funding, Marietta City Schools, and our dozens of other partners committed to working with us to offer dynamic, transformative out-of-school time programming to the youth of Franklin Gateway. With these incredible partners, the Marietta YELLS 21^st Century Community Learning Center is bringing together partners, parents, and residents to create 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 Teens on CBS46!

CBS46 visited the Community Action Cafe to hear from YELLS youth about what we’re doing to keep youth on the right track and positively shaping their neighborhood. Read more here, and check out the video below:

YELLS Networking Dinner and Fundraiser

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Imagine if metro Atlanta’s most energetic young change-makers had the opportunity to utilize the power of relationship building and networking to impact their world and their lives. The YELLS Networking Dinner and Fundraiser offers the youth of the YELLS Mentoring Program and YELLS Community Action Cafe just that chance through…

YELLS Teens Grow as Servant-Leaders in Blue Ridge

Who says being a Leader can’t be fun?

This year, our Community Action Café teens and Mentoring Program “Bigs” began their journey as servant-leaders with a three-day Retreat jam packed with team building and leadership activities. The North Georgia Mountains provided the perfect landscape for our youth to bond with their YELLS Family and do some important reflective and foundational work. The Retreat revolved around Finding Purpose and Leaving Your Mark, and youth walked away with the desire to Live for Something Greater than Themselves. Below are some highlights of the trip:

Welcome to Camp Blue Ridge!

Upon arriving at Camp Blue Ridge, each student was grouped into a “family” for the trip which served as their team for all of our various activities and team building exercises. Teens had to “go all in” and dig their family assignment out from a bucket of guck!

Watermelon Rubberband Relay Illustrates YELLS Values

Just as a rubberband stretches, YELLS will stretch you as you strive to be your best self and give to your community. YELLS Mentoring Program Bigs and Community Action Cafe Teens worked together in a watermelon relay challenge to see which Family could stretch enough rubberbands to make their watermelon EXPLODE first! To get their rubberbands, though, each Family had to complete multiple challenges that demonstrate YELLS Values.

Family Lunch Challenge!

Each day at lunch, Retreat Families complete challenges to build team morale and bond as a Family. Check them out below as they make an ice cream cone complete with syrup and sprinkles by dropping ingredients from above into a cone held by a Family member’s mouth!

Messy Twister Teaches Teens How to Leave Their Mark

Things got messy as our Cafe teens and Mentoring Bigs played an intense game of twister – with colored shaving cream! By the end, teens were covered in red, blue, green, and yellow. This provided a chance to talk about the different types of “marks” we can leave on each other. Through a group reflection, our youth were challenged to be sure the marks they leave on others are positive. Each youth shared one concrete way they will leave a positive mark on those they encounter.

Exploring Identity and Finding Purpose

YELLS youth participated in a series of workshops to explore their identity and search for their purpose. A blind-folded “Guess Who” activity revealed the superficial ways in which we often view our identity, and prepared teens to dig deeper. Youth explored the major influences in their lives and created “Identity Fingerprint Art.” They decoded a scavenger hunt using a compass to track down and uncover their “purpose.”

Live for Something Bigger than Yourself

YELLS teens discovered how they can live for something bigger than themselves. To help them remember and keep this call in their hearts, we had a little fun with a GIANT beach ball. We’ll always remember to give to our Franklin Gateway community and live for something bigger than us!

Family Bonding over the Campfire

Evenings around the campfire provided a special time for YELLS Family bonding. It was incredible hearing about the journey of each of our YELLS members, how YELLS has shaped their lives, and their commitment to leaving their mark on others.

Fun and Games!

Our youth learned a lot, but they also had FUN! When they weren’t planning their service initiatives or developing goals for their Community Action Cafe Apprenticeship Teams, our Teens and Bigs could be found canoeing, playing “Kiddie Pool Kickball,” or planning for their big YELLS Variety Show.

Our YELLS Mentoring Program Bigs and Community Action Cafe Teens will take the lessons they learned and the bonds they forged at Camp Blue Ridge everywhere they go. We’re so excited to see the mark they each will make in the Franklin Gateway community and in our world …

YELLS Academic Pep Rally

On a warm September afternoon, YELLS youth burst through a banner that proudly proclaimed #welovefranklingateway to kick-off the first ever Franklin Gateway Academic Pep Rally! Music boomed around the courtyard as the teens from the Community Action Café and children from the Mentoring and Afterschool programs completed laps giving guests high fives. They succeeded in building spirit and hype around academics! More than 100 people participated in the Pep Rally and cheered on educational success in our Franklin Gateway community.

Several organizations came to the event, including the Marietta High School Student Success Center, LaAmistad ESL, Hands On Atlanta, Amerigroup, Alorica, the Latin American Association, Girl Scouts, and Franklin Road Community Association. Additionally, Stablegold Hospitality’s Ali Jamal came and engaged with YELLS youth by making a commitment at the Commitment Pledge table and checking out the Community Action Café. Mascots Scrappy the Owl and “Mari-Etta,” from Marietta Reads also made rounds at the event.

YELLS Youth and Families Cheering

Highlights of the Academic Pep Rally include the Spelling Bee, math Competitions, and performances and speeches from local talent including Young Entrepreneur and Dat Gurl Secrete. Line brothers from the fraternity Omega Psi Phi stepped and danced in vibrant purple and gold for a captive audience.

Shoutouts highlighted William and family for their involvement in YELLS and the community

Families had the opportunity to learn about educational opportunities available in the community, sign up for library cards, play educational games like brain teasers and giant checkers, and make personal commitments for their own academic goals. Once again, YELLS youth led all ages on Franklin Gateway in a movement of change – this time focused on uniting as a community to promote continued education and academic achievement for all ages.