Coatesville Youth Initiative's Summer ServiceCorps is Changing Lives
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First Annual Harry Lewis Jr. Scholarship recipient Scarlett Patton (right) |
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Coatesville Youth Initiative's Summer ServiceCorps is Changing LivesA three-year veteran of the Coatesville Youth Initiative’s summer ServiceCorps, Jessica Locker’s jobs included working as a youth supervisor at a children’s camp and clerking at Coatesville’s City Hall and Community Dental. She also participated in CYI’s Game Changers youth leadership program, and canoed and camped along the Brandywine Creek as part of CYI’s Brandywine Trek environmental awareness program. Now she is a freshman psychology major at Immaculata University, thanks to a $20,000-per-year, four-year scholarship she has received from the Newlin Foundation as a result of connections she made through CYI. “It basically changed my life,” Locker says of CYI. “If I wasn’t involved in the summer ServiceCorps I wouldn’t be going to school because of my family’s financial situation. “Three years ago,” she adds, “I was a turtle stuck in my shell, not knowing what I wanted or how to get anything in life. Now I’m someone who knows what she wants and is in the process of learning how to get everything out of all the experiences I am encountering.” Jessica is just one of example of the hundreds of area youths—400 directly and nearly 1,500 indirectly—who have participated in CYI sponsored programs in the past year. “Our goal,” says Chaya Scott, CYI director, “is to create an environment in the greater Coatesville area that enables young people to realize their dreams and develop healthy behaviors that will help them become productive adults. We are committed to eliminating barriers that keep kids from being excited, hopeful and engaged in their lives and their community.” Last summer, for example, Nelson Negron, now a Coatesville 9th grader, thought his first ServiceCorps assignment was just going to be a job. “I didn’t think it would change me,” he says. But working at Handi-Crafters in Coatesville, which provides jobs for hundreds of people with employment barriers, had a profound effect on Nelson. “I learned not to take things for granted or get mad over little things,” he says. “To see some of the employees happy, even though they were in a wheelchair or deaf, was just amazing. It changed my whole point of view regarding seeing people with disabilities, how they act and how to work with them.” Game Changers, which sprung out of the ServiceCorps, allows area young people to provide a youth perspective to local organizations and government entities interesting in learning about changes in the community our youth would like to see. For example, Art Partners Studio in Coatesville tapped Game Changers members to shape their new youth programming. “Game Changers taught me leadership and responsibility, and it’s a good thing to learn more about your community and what you can do to stay involved and make your community better,” says Scarlett Patton, a future elementary school teacher who is now attending Delaware County Community College thanks in part to the foundation’s first Harry Lewis Jr. Scholarship. “And it’s like a big family. Chaya is like a second mother for me.” In taking young people on canoe and camping trips down the Brandywine Creek, the Brandywine Trek takes children out of their normal environment to both develop their leadership skills and heighten their understanding of where the area’s water comes from and the innate role all of us must play in protecting our natural resources. Now a senior at the Sankofa Academy Charter School in West Chester, Samuel Brown didn’t like to swim and had never canoed, camped or started a campfire before he went on the 2012 four-day trek. “I learned that I can actually go outside of my comfort zone and get to a new level if I just push and trust myself and trust others as well,” he says. “I learned so much about the Brandywine River and I’d like to go on a longer trip down the river to learn even more.” |
Jessica Locker,
“Our goal, is to create an environment in the greater Coatesville area that enables young people to realize their dreams and develop healthy behaviors that will help them become productive adults. We are committed to eliminating barriers that keep kids from being excited, hopeful and engaged in their lives and their community.” Chaya Scott,
“Gamechangers taught me leadership and responsibility, and it’s a good thing to learn more about your community and what you can do to stay involved and make your community better. And it’s like a big family. Chaya is like a second mother for me.” Scarlett Patton, |
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