 What happens when you give local under-served young people the opportunity to rebuild their community through service?
In 2011, the North Shore Community Development Coalition (NSCDC) found out when they piloted a program that brought together at-risk Salem youth to work on neighborhood improvement projects. They got such an overwhelming response, and by its conclusion, so much positive feedback, that the CDC sought to extend their summer program to a year-round one, and began exploring ways to do it. The search for a similar and equally effective model soon lead them to YouthBuild -- the comprehensive youth development framework that our then ten programs were built on. After determining such a model would sufficiently meet the needs of the under-served youth of Salem, North Shore CDC prepared to launch their YouthBuild program in the upcoming year. When they were approved by YouthBuild USA as a provisional affiliate in early 2013, they founded the first YouthBuild site on the North Shore, and were subsequently voted into the Massachusetts YouthBuild Coalition by its ten member programs in May. Since then, YouthBuild North Shore has worked tirelessly with the MYBC to improve their program and exceed the operational standards set by the coalition (most recently measured at their peer evaluation in early November), and they continue to surprise us every day. In the following article written for the Massachusetts CDC website, NSCDC Executive Director Mickey Northcutt looks back on the successful first year of the newest YouthBuild site in Massachusetts. >> Read the full article on macdc.org
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |