Was your YouthBuild Charter site featured in a newspaper, tv spot, blog or other media? Send us your stories!
From our YCSCC Fresno site:
Natalie, a student at our YCSCC Fresno site, was recently featured in a news segment for Univision 21 Fresno!
From our YCSCC Palmdale site:
January 17, 2012
The following is an excerpt from an article published in The Antelope Valley Times written by Krista Daly. For the full story, click here.
AV YouthBuild gets $800K grant
Krista Daly
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| Rossie Johnson receives an award |
PALMDALE – The U.S. Department of Labor has given Antelope Valley Youth Build an $810,000 grant to launch the Start Making A Real Transformation (SMART) Program for youths in the community.
SMART Director Rachel Konforty said the SMART program is based off the Youth Build model, in which students 16-24 obtain their high school diploma or GED and receive job skills.
“The Antelope Valley is one of nine program recipients of the grant through the Department of Labor in high crime, high poverty communities,” Konforty said. “It can not only give (students) a chance at developing their educational pathway and their career pathway, but also develop their leadership and leadership in giving back to the communities.”
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| Rachel Konforty speaks |
Rossie Johnson, CEO of AV Youth Build, said housing for the students will be in Palmdale on 5th Street East and Q-5. Behind it, he added, will be a community training center available for anyone in the community to gain job training and life skills.
A core part of the SMART program is doing the crime and violence prevention work, Konforty said.
“It’s an important project because what we do here is going to have implications across the country for getting Youth Build programs and other programs like Youth Build funded by states in order to give other young people a chance to make different choices and a chance at a new life,” Konforty said.
AV Youth Build is offering classes beyond the Youth Build USA courses, which include solar, nursing and fire tech programs, Johnson said.
“We call our students ‘at potential,’” he said. “A lot of the times we hear ‘at-risk’ and all these negative things we attach to our young people, but we’ve seen them demonstrate every day in our schools and in the community that given the opportunity, the right chance, the right support system, they can achieve anything they want to achieve in life.”
From our YCSC LA CAUSA site:
The following is an excerpt from an article published on FryingPanNews.org by Tony Bautista. For the full story, click here.
CORNERING THE MARKET ON HEALTHY FOOD
Tony Bautista
CORNERING THE MARKET ON HEALTHY FOOD
Tony Bautista
Fresh produce is not a phrase you hear often in East L.A. Just visit any corner store and you can see why.
East L.A. is one of many “food desert” communities in the L.A. Basin.
– communities where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain.
Walk down any street and you will find a fast-food joint way sooner than
you’ll locate a healthy food market. Our residents and kids are
bombarded with chips, candy, ice cream and advertising for alcohol when
they do go shopping. It’s no wonder that a child will sooner pick up a
bag of “takis” (a popular chip brand) than go on looking in vain for
healthy food.
LA CAUSA, a nonprofit organization that engages disenfranchised young people and their families from East Los Angeles, has sought to change East L.A. from a food desert into a food oasis, and has seen corner stores as a primary avenue to create that change. As part of this effort, LA CAUSA launched the People’s Affordable, Local, and Organic Market Alterations (PALOMA) to create a holistic approach to addressing the food desert issue.
LA CAUSA, a nonprofit organization that engages disenfranchised young people and their families from East Los Angeles, has sought to change East L.A. from a food desert into a food oasis, and has seen corner stores as a primary avenue to create that change. As part of this effort, LA CAUSA launched the People’s Affordable, Local, and Organic Market Alterations (PALOMA) to create a holistic approach to addressing the food desert issue.
Sent from our YCSCC Fresno site:
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
The following is an excerpt from an article published on the San Joaquín Valley news site VidaEnElValle.com by Rebecca Plevin. For the full story, click here.
WORKING FOR A SECOND CHANCE
Rebecca Plevin
FRESNO -- The song 'Successful' beat through one ear bud as
Leonides Olea bent his shaven head over a desk at the YouthBuild Charter
School of California and worked on an English assignment.
With
his other ear, Olea half- listened to his classmates' conversation,
silently nodding his head in agreement as one student declared his
intention to receive his high school diploma.
But mostly on that
Thursday morning in November, Olea kept his focus on his classwork --
and his music: I want the money, the money and the cars, cars and the
clothes... I just wanna be successful.
This time around, Olea, 24, knows that his own success hinges on
achieving his high school degree. Today, Olea -- who joined a gang at
14, bounced through three high schools, and dropped out of school after
becoming a teen father at age 16 -- is determined to let nothing derail
his education.
This fall, Olea took an active step toward reaching
that goal: He enrolled in the YouthBuild Charter School of California
Center, partnered locally with the Fresno County Economic Opportunities
Commission's Local Conservation Corps. As a student corps member, he
spends one week working toward his high school diploma, and the next
week gaining vocational training, as a member of the corps' landscaping
crew.
He thought his chances of receiving a high school diploma
were over. Now, he has embraced this opportunity as if his life depended
on it.
http://www.vidaenelvalle.com/2011/12/01/1075376/working-for-a-second-chance.html
July 21st, 2011
The following is an excerpt from an article by Gloria Angelina Castillo from EGPNews.com. For the full article, click here.
Beating the Odds: High School "Dropouts" Earn Diploma at East LA Program Facing Big Cuts
Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer
While the 2011 season for pomp and circumstance has already wrapped up
at Los Angeles area schools, not until last week did nearly three-dozen
students at an East Los Angeles-based academy finally received their
diplomas. It was a privilege they thought they forfeited when they
dropped out of high school, and one which may not be available to as
many students in the future due to federal funding cuts.
Twenty-one-year-old Luz Avila struggled in high school. She attended
Garfield High School, Garfield Adult school, another program, and then
Cesar Chavez Continuation, but on July 14, she received her high school
diploma through LA CAUSA YouthBuild, a non-profit organization and
charter school she says allowed her to experience high school, go to
grad night, volunteer; everything “without the drama,”she said. “I used to be scared to ask questions in
class … I would get red because there’s — how many students in each
class? Like 25-30 in one class and it’s all cramped, and you try to ask
the teachers something but they explain it to you the way they explained
it to everybody else,”she told EGP. The LA CAUSA YouthBuild program “was my second chance. I’m actually going to graduate on stage,” she told EGP before the ceremony.
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| Sylvia Guerra gives her graduation speech (photo by Gloria Angelina Castillo) |
Sylvia Guerra, who earned straight A’s, is another graduate. She was elected to student government and
participated in leadership opportunities locally and in Sacramento
during the intense nine-month program. Both young women want to be nurses and say LA CAUSA helped put them on the track to achieve their dreams.
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