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Nov 05

Helping young people reach their potential

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

Today’s young people are tomorrow’s _______.  It’s a common expression and you can fill in the blank many different ways. It’s an inescapable fact that young people eventually grow up and turn into something.

Today’s adults, as every generation does, hope that transition is a positive one and one that will make the world a better place.

It’s also an accepted premise that many young people need a little help along the way and many nonprofits (and for-profits) are there to lend a hand.

According to the Minneapolis-based National Alliance for Secondary Education and Transition: “Youth development is a process that prepares a young person to meet the challenges of adolescence and adulthood and achieve his or her full potential. Youth development is promoted through activities and experiences that help youth develop social, ethical, emotional, physical, and cognitive competencies.”

In other words, how do you turn young people into successful adults?

Five years ago, an index to measure the youth development in multiple countries was created for the British Commonwealth. The purpose of the Youth Development Index (YDI) is to be able to compare five key areas for young people: education, health, employment, civic participation and political participation.

And as part of this effort, young people were asked for their opinions on the subject. For Eva Maria from New Zealand, youth development “is when, as a young person, you can believe in a future. A real future.”

Clearly, senior staff at Boys & Girls Clubs in Indianapolis would agree with Eva’s assessment. While there have been substantial changes in professionalizing the youth worker field since 1893 when the local club was first established, several things have remained constant.

First and foremost, young people come to the clubs to build relationships. For Maggie Lewis, the organization’s president since May, and LeeAnn Harris, who is senior director of club operations, this focus has been critical to the nonprofit’s longevity.

Research shows that a key factor to promote resilience in youth is the consistent presence of a single caring adult. Harris said that every survey of the views of the clubs’ young people reveals exactly that.

“It’s never, ever been about a program. The number one reason that they come in our doors everyday is because of our staff and the relationships that staff form with young people,” said Harris who has worked for the nonprofit since 1989.

“No matter how appealing technology becomes or how integral it becomes to young people’s success or their day-to-day interactions, no matter whether it’s moving young people toward the workforce or just trying to help them get their homework done, whether it’s a kid who only comes to eat or somebody who comes because they want to be on the robotics group, the only way we successfully serve any of their needs is to have that positive adult mentor relationship,” said Harris.

According to research compiled in the early 1990s by the late psychologist Norman Garmezy that single factor has a significant impact on children living in poverty. But the Boys & Girls Clubs believes it is also about adapting to the needs of young people.

In May, for example, the nonprofit added a new program at its Finish Line Boys & Girls Club on Indianapolis’ Far Eastside. The Pivot Re-engagement Center is a program for 16- to 24-year-olds and is a partnership of the club, Community Alliance of the Far Eastside (CAFE) and other local organizations. Partnering with EmployIndy, the strategy is to move young people toward employment or other options.

About two-thirds of the young people that are served at the club are not in school and are not employed.

Both Harris and Lewis are advocates for young people and think that sometimes adults tend to write them off as lost causes.

“I think we’ve proven time and again, but even recently through our re-engagement center that young people just want opportunities to be successful,” said Harris. “We’ve not had any problems or incidents there.”

She said that the goal for the program that started in May was to register 100 young people, but it’s at 700 and counting.

“These young people have had some bumps along the way and so they’ve come to us to get a better direction and to make the best of themselves,” said Lewis.

It circles back to believing in a future, and according to Harris, that starts in elementary school.

“We’ve seen that even with the school-aged young people that we serve. It’s amazing how, if you’ve never had an opportunity to create a vision for your future outside of what you see in your own community or even if you do have an opportunity to have that vision, hope itself can be knocked out of you before you ever turn 16. We see that all the time, and that’s our job to give them opportunity,” said Harris.

The nonprofit recently received a grant from Finish Line Youth Foundation that matches school-aged young people with employment opportunities at Finish Line stores. It also has a similar grant through Boys & Girls Clubs of America with GAP and Old Navy to support workforce development.

Again it’s about adapting. For several years, at clubs nationally and locally, there was a downturn of the number of teens participating. Many teens were looking for work opportunities. Boys & Girls Clubs saw this as a good way to address the needs of the population it serves and is helping them become a ready workforce.

Another thing that has changed in Indiana is there is now a career path for youth workers. Across the state, there are now education programs, which include certificates, associate degrees and higher education programs to certify and educate youth practitioners.

This year, Indiana is piloting an online program with the Child and Youth Care Certification Board (CYCCB), which is based in Texas. Practitioners in Indiana are able to use an online form to submit applications for Child and Youth Care (CYC) certification.

Practitioners can complete all required paperwork and submit documentation electronically. Over 300 Indiana practitioners, pursuing certification this year, are expected to use the online system, according to Jeananne Reich who is managing the program for Indiana. So far this year, nearly 200 were awarded the certification. Harris estimates that 75 percent of Boys & Girls Club Indiana’s staff are certified.

Lewis said over the 125 years, the facilities have changed from places to swim and play sports to places to obtain basic needs.

“Today, youngsters come to our clubs for basic needs. I cannot stress enough that they are coming for basic needs,” she said.  According to Lewis, poverty is the number one issue where the clubs are located. Annually, the nonprofit serves nearly 7,000 kids at its five facility-based clubs and five school-based sites.

Over half of club members’ households have an income of $25,000 or less, but families are asked to pay $15 for a young person to attend for the school year.  Over 75 percent of the young people are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Last year, it served nearly 300,000 meals and snacks, making it the second largest provider of Second Helpings meals.

In 2001, area schools began hosting after-school clubs. Although those programs are smaller, they are effective, according to Harris, since transportation is not an issue, making attendance more frequent. At these locations it is easier to establish relationships with a child’s teacher. In the city, the loss of community schools makes it more challenging. A given facility can have kids attending 50 different schools.

“There’s been great research done that proves the obvious that the more often a kid attends, the greater the impact you’re able to have. So although it’s a smaller number of kids, we know we have increased impact there because kids are with us almost every day,” said Harris. Second Helpings dinner meals are provided at the school locations, too.

Currently, there are five school sites. Two in IPS — School #44 and Jonathan Jennings — and three in Warren Township — Liberty Park, Raymond Park Middle School and Pleasant Run School. Earlier this year, three school sites closed when a 21st Center Community Learning Center Grant distributed by the Indiana Department of Education was not awarded. Students from George S. Buck (#94) were directed to the new Finish Line Club, which opened in 2016.

Harris and Lewis agree that although the adjectives describing the mission have changed, the basic mission has remained the same. It’s always been about helping young people reach their full potential.

“The part of our mission statement that I think speaks most to youth development is the part that says that we help young people reach their full potential. There are a lot of phrases before and after that — about productive, caring, responsible citizens through this program and that program — but it’s always been helping young people reach their full potential,” said Harris.

After serving as president of the nonprofit, Lewis, who is an elected member and former president of the Indianapolis City-County Council, said that if she were talking to her fellow council members, she would say, “Our youth are banking on us to get this right. They are looking to us for guidance and direction. And while there are a lot of other things happening in our community that take our attention and take our time away, they still need adults to guide and direct them.”

Apr 09

About the film

By Education, Feature, Programming

“Eva A-7063,” the 120-minute documentary that premiered last week, is narrated by actor Ed Asner, features appearances by CNN journalist Wolf Blitzer, actor Elliott Gould and former NBA player Ray Allen, who share Kor’s influence in their lives. The original score was composed by Dr. Tyron Cooper.

Traveling nearly 90,000 miles, filmmakers Green and Brown followed the 84-year-old Terre Haute resident to the Romanian village where she first encountered anti-Semitism and to the lab at Auschwitz where she was subjected to medical experiments by the Nazi “angel of death,” Josef Mengele.

But harder even than those places, Kor said, were the documentarians’ probing into the bitter decades in the middle of her life —  before she had come to forgive her Nazi tormentors — that is a key aspect of the new film,  “Eva A-7063.”

Green, a former IndyStar journalist whose previous documentary efforts include “Attucks: The School that Opened a City,” (2016) about long-segregated Crispus Attucks High School, said Kor’s story has typically been told through the lens of her experiences at Auschwitz and her decision to forgive the Nazis.

“Each of those aspects is certainly worth full treatment,” Green said. “What’s been missing is that middle part, the half century between liberation in 1945 and forgiveness in 1995.”

“Our hope is that this new reporting will put into special relief how far this woman has come,” Green said.

Apr 09

“Eva A-7063” provides educational material

By Education, Feature, Programming

Editor’s note: Filmmakers Ted Green and Mika Brown in collaboration with WFYI Public Media are producing a 60-minute version from the original footage for educational use. It will be shown for the first time this spring at the Indianapolis Central Library. Partnering with Teach Plus, the film will be shown for 400 educators on May 2 @ 5 p.m. Register for the May event.

Shakespeare tells us that all the world’s a stage where from birth to death everyone plays a part. Eva Mozes Kor could tell us that all the world’s a classroom where through history, we learn about good and evil and a lot about ourselves.

When Kor, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor, tells her story in the new documentary, “Eva A-7063,” fittingly, she begins at school in Portz, Romania, the small town where she and her twin sister, Miriam, were born. Theirs was the only Jewish family in town.

The Terre Haute resident said students who had been friends began taunting and calling her a “dirty Jew.” Her teachers were of no help, and even made matters worse. On one occasion, Kor said her teacher in the one-room schoolhouse had strewn corn kernels in the corner of the room and forced the 10-year-old sisters to kneel on them. She then allowed the twins’ classmates to viciously spew their prejudices against Jews.

Kor’s story has been well-documented in Indiana. As her parents and two sisters died in concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis, Kor and her sister were subjected to medical experiments by Josef Mengele, the Nazi “angel of death.”  Kor’s life, and other Holocaust victims, are chronicled at the CANDLES Holocaust Museum & Education Center in Terre Haute.

For decades, Kor harbored intense bitterness. She has since been able to forgive her tormentors and now wants young people to learn from her experiences.

In February, she spoke with third- and fourth-graders at the Peace Learning Center in Indianapolis. She was there to be inducted into the Peace Learning Center’s Wall of Peacemakers.

“Nine-, 10- and 11-year olds are the smartest kids in the world,” she said.  When she asked if they knew about forgiveness, a hundred hands eagerly were raised.

She told them, “In my opinion, every single one of you is very powerful and you can change the world. Did you know that? So don’t ever let anybody tell you that you are just little children.”

Her lessons for these schoolchildren were simple: Never give up; treat people with respect; and forgive your worst enemy. It will heal you inside.

And what the kids took away was even more poignant.

Here’s what several students from IPS/Butler University Laboratory School took away.

“I could imagine, but I don’t want to because it’s like a personal narrative horror story,” said Charlie.

“It was powerful meeting someone who survived a camp where almost everybody died. I felt like I’m not an ordinary kid. I can change the world. I can do something special. When you forgive someone, they might just be kind,” said J.J.

“Why would you, I get why you forgive them, but that’s like a really, really hard decision,” said Owen.

To see more of their comments, click here: https://media.wfyi.org/EvaPressKitAssets/Eva-Kids-at-Peace-Learning-Center.mp4

Educator film and discussion guide

So it’s not surprising given Kor’s impact, that filmmakers Ted Green and Mika Brown in collaboration with WFYI Public Media are producing a 60-minute version from the original footage for educational use.

It will be shown for the first time this spring at the Indianapolis Central Library. Partnering with Teach Plus, the film will be shown for 400 educators on May 2 @ 5 p.m.

Similar to the educators’ guide for Kor’s book, “Surviving the Angel of Death,” WFYI is producing a similar guide to accompany “Eva A-7063,” intended to “provoke students and families to discuss discrimination and forgiveness.” The WFYI educator discussion guide will be distributed at this screening.

To register for the May event, go to: https://teachplus.tfaforms.net/327879

Kor believes in the power of children.

Part of her legacy is the work she did with Indiana state legislators Clyde Kersey and Tim Skinner. It resulted in the Indiana General Assembly passing a law (20-35-7) in 2007 that requires Holocaust education in secondary schools as part of U.S. history courses. The legislation also requires public schools to teach the importance of respecting the rights and value of others.

“In teaching about the Holocaust, I am telling the story of the past. But I am also telling them that there is hope after despair and each one of us can make a difference,” said Kor.

The newest film can serve as a tool for discussing history, the filmmakers’ hope is that the lessons will go further and “embolden youth to take steps that make a difference in their schools, neighborhoods, and the world.”

To register for the educator toolkit, click here: https://www.thestoryofeva.com/education/

Kor worries about the Parkland students in Florida after the recent school shooting there.

“They have pain too raw to understand. They have to heal. What do you do with all the pain? What does a victim do? One power is to forgive? With time they will be able to do that. They have that ability. Teach the skill of forgiveness,” she said.

The 120-minute documentary will air on WFYI television on Oct. 25 @ 8 p.m.

Feb 12

“Drug czar” steps up efforts against opioid crisis

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

When Jim McClelland retired after 41 years at the helm of Goodwill of Central Indiana, he didn’t envision an encore career. He was looking forward to traveling with his wife and serving on several boards.

But when Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order and tapped him for a cabinet position, McClelland relinquished his daily flexibility. Last January, he became Indiana’s first Executive Director for Drug Prevention, Treatment and Enforcement and reports directly to Holcomb. He also chairs the Indiana Commission to Combat Drug Abuse and coordinates the activities of nine Indiana agencies.

It’s a position that several other states have created.

For nonprofits that want to support the state’s efforts, here’s McClelland’s advice:

  • Learn all you can about the issue.  The more you learn, the better you will be able to see where and how your organization can help.
  • Become part of a local coalition focused on prevention, treatment and recovery.  In Indiana, every county has a “local coordinating council” that might offer such opportunities or be able to suggest how your organization can contribute to the overall effort.
  • Address some of the underlying root causes of substance misuse and abuse by working with others to improve all of the social determinants of health.

While at Goodwill he supported the concept and developed programs around the idea that so many of our social problems are interrelated and tend to reinforce and compound each other, rather than treat them in isolation.

“What we were trying to do at Goodwill in efforts to reduce intergenerational poverty was to bring pieces together. And conceptually that’s at least in part what needs to be done here,” said McClelland.

Since then, McClelland has seen the opioid crisis up close and although he has a lengthy nonprofit working history, he had not realized the complexity of the epidemic. While it got its legs in Southern Indiana, it’s now everywhere.

“It is in small towns in rural areas, it’s in the cities, it’s in the suburbs, and it now cuts across all socio-economic groups. There are many pieces to this, and there are many steps that need to be taken simultaneously. You cannot do it sequentially and there are no quick or easy solutions,” McClelland said.

In 2016, the opiate scourge killed 785 Hoosiers, according to the Indiana State Department of Health, and the state’s emergency rooms handle more than 400 overdose visits weekly.

“This isn’t a recent problem. It’s been developing gradually over two decades,” McClelland said.  “What is recent is the awareness of the magnitude and the complexity and how many lives and families it’s affecting. It’s almost as if it had to reach a certain, critical mass awareness before people started saying, ‘We have to do something about this.’”

“We use words like ‘epidemic crisis’ to describe it for two reasons. One of those is this one got started from the overuse of legally prescribed pain medications. People thought because the doctors were prescribing these medications that they were safe. It turned out they were much more addictive than a lot of people believed,” he said.

Doing something about it is just how McClelland spends his days.

The state now has three broad priorities to reverse the epidemic.

The first is keeping people alive. To support that effort, one change is that naloxone, the reversal agent, is not only available to first responders, but can be purchased over the counter. Another initiative is a pilot project at Eskenazi Health. When someone overdoses and is rushed to the hospital, peer recovery coaches encourage them to seek treatment. The state plans to use some 21st Century Cures Act grant money to replicate this program.

The second priority is to expand treatment capacity and access. Ultimately, McClelland hopes that no one is farther than a one-hour drive for treatment.

And the third is stopping the flow of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, which is in part the reason for spikes in overdoses and deaths. Heroin’s cousin, fentanyl has many times heroin’s potency, but looks identical.  Most fentanyl sold on the street is made in clandestine labs, is less pure, and its effect on the body can be more unpredictable.

McClelland said a lot of what he did in his first year was to put things in place that will really start paying off this year. He believes in a deliberate, strategic plan to attack the problem, and compiling and sharing data is critical. In the past year, he has worked to get state agencies that report to him to sign agreements to share data with each other, giving a more comprehensive picture.

“Now, they can start looking at this data in different ways and enable us to see things that we wouldn’t otherwise see. Hopefully, we will have data that is going to be converted into more useful, actionable and timely information,” he said.

Another is sharing this information with Pew Charitable Trust that is analyzing Indiana’s data and policies at no cost to the state. Pew will continue its work this year.

“They have just a wealth of talent and resources and a national perspective and a lot of national data. So they can look at policies across the country and they can say, ‘These really seem to be effective. Indiana, you ought to take a look at this.’ I will tell, what we’ve seen is we’re really on the right track in a lot of this,” McClelland said.

McClelland shared stories about two young men who were prescribed medications after surgery, one for a football injury and the other after an appendectomy. Both found themselves addicted and searching the Internet for more. Both had stable homes.

“A lot of people developed opioid disorder, which is the technical term. And regardless of how someone develops a substance-use disorder of that type, once you got it, you’ve got a chronic disease. It changes the structure of the brain. It’s treatable, but few people can recover without treatment,” he said.

Dr. Jennifer Walthall, secretary of Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration, groups the people being treated into thirds. A third with treatment are on a maintenance dose of one of the FDA-approved drugs and taper off, another group needs to be on maintenance for life. For a third treatment doesn’t work. Compared to other addictive substances, treatment for an opioid-use disorder takes longer and the risk of relapse is higher, something that can take years even if in treatment.

In order to provide better access to treatment, the lawmakers approved five additional FSSA-approved, licensed and monitored opioid treatment programs that will open this year. The additional five are in Greenwood, Terre Haute, Fort Wayne, Lafayette and Bloomington and, through the federal 21st Century Cures grant, FSSA is working with addiction services providers across the state to create other new residential treatment programs or expand their existing programs.

Currently lawmakers are considering whether to add nine new treatment centers around the state in H.B. 1007. If the bill passes, the new treatment centers would be operated by hospitals.

In October, the state launched its Next Level Recovery website, www.in.gov/recovery. The site includes a geo-location feature designed to help Hoosiers find Division of Mental Health and Addiction-certified addiction treatment providers throughout the state.

Additionally, two improvements to treatment access are on the horizon. Next month, the state will launch an open-beds platform linked to the 2-1-1 system. It will enable someone looking for a residential treatment to find an empty bed. Until now, calling sites individually was the primary method.

“This is really innovative, and it’s going to enable us to make more efficient use of existing capacity. We know how many beds are out there but at any given point in time, we haven’t known where an empty one was without calling. So this is going to change that,” McClelland said.

Another change is approval of a federal waiver from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to use Medicaid dollars for residential treatment and recovery support services.  Approximately $80 million in annual funding was recently approved.

But one of McClelland’s continuing concerns is that those who get arrested have to be treated, and unfortunately with a lack of treatment access, the jails are the de facto detox centers.

“In most counties in the state, jails don’t want to be in that position, but they are. We need some better solutions to dealing with that situation. DOC is the largest treatment provider in the state of Indiana,” McClelland said. They are working together to offer more comprehensive services.

This month, the state will launch Project Echo, a training developed in New Mexico. It is a medication-assisted treatment training that is available to providers. Primary doctors can apply for and receive a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) waiver to allow them to dispense methadone and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.

In January, the state announced with the state Department of Health and the Indiana State Medical Association for the management of acute pain to include post-surgical pain. Over the next couple of months, six webinars dealing with various aspects of the opioid situation and pain management will be available.

McClelland said that another significant change is a way to integrate the prescription drug-monitoring program with electronic-medical records and pharmacy management system statewide.

“This will give prescribers and dispensers of prescriptions a tool that’s fast and very user-friendly and enable them to see a controlled substance history of a patient. They will also know if someone is doctor shopping. They will know if somebody is taking something in combination with an opioid that would be really dangerous. Up until now, the system has been clunky but the state’s paying to fix that,” he said.

There is a bill in this year’s General Assembly requiring prescribers to check INSPECT before issuing a first prescription for an opioid.  It passed 47-1 in the Senate, and in February moved to a House committee. If it passes, practitioners will be phased in, but by 2021 will be mandatory.

Other innovations include locations on where to dispose of unused opioids, which are listed on the state’s Next Level Recovery website. Walmart has taken a step to help with disposal. When a prescription for a controlled substance is filled, the customer also receives a DisposeRx packet. When disposing of unused pills, the customer adds warm water and the powder, and it is converted into a non-divertible and biodegradable gel.

There is some positive news. In January, Clark County had overdose deaths drop by a third, from 90 to 60.

“Any good news is welcome, believe me,” McClelland said. “There hasn’t been very much to this point. Here’s the problem, if you could magically prevent anyone else from becoming addicted, we still have tens of thousands of people, maybe even hundreds of thousands who need treatment. And we have to deal with that. They will not recover without treatment, and abstinence-only treatment only has about a 10 percent success rate. We are focused on expanding the availability of medication-assisted treatment and the recovery support systems or services that people are going to need, and we’re going to be doing it for a long time.”

McClelland also talked about the Fairbanks Foundation’s prevention initiative — $12 million over three years.

“Fairbanks has been interested in this for a long time. We have had a lot of conversations with them over the last year, but this is their initiative and they really stepped up to the plate here. They are focused on evidenced-based prevention programs and there are some programs that have been around a while that have shown through randomized control trials, real solid evidence, significant long-term impact, introduced in substance use and misuse among young people.

“And that’s what we want to see more of. I’m always been interested in innovation and trying new things, but here with the problem that we’ve got now and the limited resources to deal with it, we need to focus our resources on what we know work,” he said.

“When it comes to preventing substance abuse and helping those who have a substance use disorder achieve and maintain recovery, there’s a quote from ‘Dreamland,’ by Sam Quinones that I particularly like:  ‘Nobody can do it on their own.  But no drug dealer nor cartel can stand against families, schools, churches, and communities united together.’”

Jan 29

EARN Indiana program pays off for nonprofits, college interns

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

As Teachers’ Treasures executive director for the past four years, Margaret Sheehan works with volunteers daily. The Eastside nonprofit volunteer-run store, which opened in 2000, provides teachers access to donated educational supplies and other materials.

And while volunteers have been critical to the store’s efforts, late last summer Sheehan added an employee to her staff — a paid intern. It was the nonprofit’s first paid intern.

But the benefit was not just to the organization, but also to the student who is gaining professional experience in the workplace. The college student has taken on additional projects that a nonprofit would not have tackled as readily.

Recognizing that experiences like these develop workplace skills, the Indiana Commission for Higher Education took over the former summer work-study program, and it was renamed the Employer Aid Readiness Network (EARN) Indiana program in 2013 under Indiana Code 21-16-2. Last year the legislature approved $606,099 for each of the 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscal years.

The program pays 50 percent of the intern’s pay and is administered in partnership with INTERNnet, a free internship-matching program managed by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. The goal is to help create or expand high-quality experiential opportunities. HB 1312 in 2013 expanded the program to allow for-profit employers to also access the matching funds. Previously, only government agencies, colleges and universities, and nonprofits were included.

For more information about EARN Indiana, check out INTERNnet’s website.

And for an employer guide on internships in general, visit INTERNnet’s website.

In order to qualify for this practical experience as a paid intern, a student must be a full- or part-time college student with financial need.

Teachers’ Treasures is not the only nonprofit providing students with these workplace experiences. Last year, 113 nonprofit positions were filled, including an environment residential center, library and a municipality and rehabilitation center. In 2016, there were 102 interns hired by nonprofits.

Erin Crofton, the education director at Dunes Learning Center in Chesterton, said it didn’t take long for her board to endorse applying to the program, and it has had a positive impact on the bottom line.

“We’re always looking at budgets, and I thought ‘Wow, it says that they will reimburse 50 percent of the salary for your interns for the time that they’re here.’ That sounds too good to be true,” she said.

EARN Indiana interns can be hired during the summer or school year for at least eight weeks. Crofton hires naturalists during the school year, all of whom have graduated from college, so those program interns are not eligible for EARN Indiana dollars.

But in the summer, Crofton hires 10 residential environmental program interns who are still in college. While not all her summer counselors qualify, for the past two years she’s had at least two. According to the guidelines, no more than 50 percent of a nonprofit’s workforce can be interns.

But Crofton has found that not only does EARN Indiana help fund the intern program, it helps her draw applicants from a wider geographic region with the positions advertised on INTERNnet, which has a statewide reach.

For students, the database is searchable and includes a hotline for questions.

Both Sheehan and Crofton said the online application is straightforward.  Once a nonprofit applies and submits a position description, it receives a response within five business days. After approval, the employer receives an email from the commission verifying the position title, work hours, pay rates and the employment timetable. A second email contains an employer agreement and the position is posted.

At Teachers’ Treasures, Sheehan completed the application this first time, and the director of operations is taking care of the communication and reports. Crofton does both. Both said the customer service is great support. As long as the employer is in good standing, there is no limit to the number of times an employer can apply for EARN Indiana internship dollars.

At Teachers’ Treasures, Maryann O’Connor, an IUPUI sophomore who has been employed since August, managed two projects – a STEM and an upcoming gala auction, as part of her experiential internship. For the auction, she met with board members one-on-one to ascertain where they might have connections, and then followed up with them.

After Eli Lilly learned that 60 percent of fourth graders in Indiana had never had a STEM activity, the pharmaceutical company approached Teachers’ Treasures to connect to area teachers. The EARN Indiana intern had experience in this area and worked with Teachers’ Treasures staff and teachers to determine what type of kits would provide teachers. As a result the nonprofit built 2,000 kits to make slime, complete with Borax, glue, beakers and a teacher demonstration kit. O’Connor identified what was needed, and coordinated Lilly employees through an Indy Do-Day at Gleaners to assemble the materials.

“I am grateful for the real responsibility I’ve been trusted with,” O’Connor said. “The STEM project allowed me to actually interact with teachers and see the results of this effort. I was able to take on a leadership role, which included writing the teacher instructions, managing the assembly and taking overall responsibility for the project.”

Sheehan said that while this was a little outside the scope of what the nonprofit typically gives away, without an intern she would not have attempted it. She said there is always going to be an interesting project that you wouldn’t take on without an intern.

“We had the right intern in place,” she said. “She took responsibility. They were her projects — both very different.”

And while Teachers’ Treasures has gained, so has O’Connor.

“This internship has helped me better understand my career path. It applied my course work to a nonprofit and has been a valuable hands-on experience. I am interested in continuing to work with nonprofits,” said O’Connor who is double majoring in international studies and Spanish and is working to complete the nonprofit management certificate. She said this internship was an opportunity to see a nonprofit up close.

“It’s been great working with a small staff, which allows you to see the key components of the operation at work. The organization has an executive director, volunteer coordinator, events coordinator and operations manager and you can see how they function together.”

O’Connor said that it is important that those not in the nonprofit sector apply for nonprofit internships. She has friends who are business majors, and are having difficulty finding one. Her advice is that business managers can see all sides of an operation on a smaller scale.

Reporting the EARN Indiana’s intern’s hours can be on an ongoing basis or be a one-time payment.

“You just have to have all of the reporting done by a certain date, and you can just get a check then or you can do it ongoing. I like to do it ongoing just so I make sure, I don’t have to dig for stuff. The program provides that flexibility,” said Crofton.

If a nonprofit is considering applying, Crofton offers simple advice.

“Absolutely do it. There’s nothing you could lose from it.”

Key is to keep in mind why you’re doing it.

“My major recommendation for any internship is always keep in mind, why are you doing the internship and what are you providing the student. I believe that internships are not for the organization itself necessarily. It’s really you’re helping move this individual along in their career.

“Provide a good experience. I think EARN does that because it has to be experiential, and an intern cannot just get coffee and make copies all day,” said Crofton.

Oct 23

A terrorized British city turns to an all-American play for healing

By Programming

By  Matt Trueman, reporter, The New York Times

In the wake of the May terrorist attack at Manchester Arena, which killed 23 people, including the attacker, the space outside the nearby Royal Exchange Theater became a site of public mourning. St. Ann’s Square slowly filled with flowers and other tributes – soft toys, football jerseys, balloons — covering an area the size of a swimming pool. Every day for three weeks, the theater’s staff walked past on their way to work.

At the time, the artistic director Sarah Frankcom was facing a gap in her autumn schedule, the result of a leading actor’s clashing commitments. One play kept coming to mind: Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” An all-American classic, Wilder’s 1938 portrait of small-town life at the turn of the century nonetheless seemed to Ms. Frankcom to chime with the atmosphere in Manchester at that moment.

“All over town, there was a real sense that people were meeting each other in simple, everyday actions,” she recalled. The scene in St. Ann’s Square was a case in point. “We suddenly all went, ‘Oh, that’s why we have town squares, isn’t it?’ It wasn’t about looking at flowers, but about needing to be together.”

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Oct 16

Finding adequate shelter for families can be challenging

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

A little over a year ago, Mike Chapuran’s first day at Family Promise in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood didn’t go quite as planned.

Trying to get a sense of his new position, he started his first day answering the nonprofit’s phones. The first caller was a family, which he had to turn away because the shelter was full. Then came another call, and by 9:40 a.m., he had turned away five families seeking shelter.

Twelve minutes later, he suggested the caller call 211 or one of the other two family shelters – Dayspring or Holy Family.

“The mom told me, ‘I’ve already called all of them, I’ve been calling them for weeks. I’m staying in an attic and it’s 80 degrees and my infant won’t stop crying. Do you know how hot it gets in an attic?’ I felt powerless, but imagine her powerlessness. I’m just in a job. She’s has a kid. My point is on the day I arrived here, I was like ‘I didn’t know this was a problem in Indianapolis.’”

Unfortunately, Chapuran’s first day was not unusual. Every day, about 10 families are turned away. Other family shelters in Central Indiana – Dayspring and Holy Family — have similar experiences.  According to Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP), 6,000 school-aged children will experience housing instability. Dayspring, Holy Family and Family Promise will take dads, but Salvation Army and Wheeler only take mothers and children.

For over 24 years, Family Promise of Greater Indianapolis, initially called the Interfaith Hospitality Network, has been part of the network supporting homeless families. It began with a talk given at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church by the founder of a Hospitality Network program in New Jersey. Dr. Dean Lindsey was at the talk, researched the program and problem, and then formed a local outreach group to connect with congregations. Working as volunteers, they persuaded eight congregations to split the effort that first year, each hosting four families for a week.

Since 1994, volunteers and congregations have helped over 750 families with children. Today, two different congregations offer hospitality every week, serving a total of eight families. The network now includes 36 churches, and another 18 that support the effort of a church close to them.

Congregations provide overnight lodging and meals for up to four families. Families daily arrive daily at the church at 6 p.m. and stay until 7 the next morning. On Sundays, volunteers wash sheets, and then transport the rollaway beds to the next congregation.

“If a parent has a job and works until 6, we don’t want to be an obstacle to employment so we have the Uber and Lyft fund. We will have volunteers go pick them up for the week.  We don’t let our model get in the way of what actually matters, which is working,” said Chapuran.

Host congregations serve dinner and breakfast and plan activities for the children. Members of the congregation spend the night at the shelter, and then each morning transport families to the Family Promise Day Center. Children go to school or daycare.

The Day Center, located behind St. Rita’s Church on Indy’s Eastside, provides support for adults who either cannot work or are seeking work. They meet with a case manager to build skills such as budgeting, while applying for housing or employment. Adults can use the computer lab to prepare resumes, research jobs and apply for jobs online.

“We have success stories. We have the mom who comes back seven years later, and we don’t know she stayed in the program. She’s wearing nursing scrubs, and she donates food to us and says, ‘Seven years ago this program saved my life.’ She then talks about the volunteers and how they doted on her children and how she got a job as a CNA at $15 an hour and the program helped her get that. And that now she’s has an apartment.

“We have another mom who says after she puts her kids to bed and turns off the lights, she loves it because she has to get mad at her daughter for turning on the lights and reading a book at 9 o’clock at night,” he said.

When a family leaves, support continues. Four years ago, the program added an AfterCare home-based case manager who continues to work with families. The belief is that INH helps people find housing and AfterCare helps them keep it. The nonprofit’s name was changed when it added the program, and is now part of an affiliate network of over 200 Family Promise branches.

The case manager visits families at their houses or apartments, and currently serves 32 families.

“That’s scary because that’s a lot. So she has to prioritize those most in need. Families will do a monthly budget with her one meeting, and then next month when she’s back, revisit it. There may be a meeting in between to work on things like providing a connection for a school uniform resource. But it’s really budgeting on the first of the month, and then coming back the next month to try to help create long-term goals as motivation,” said the executive director.

And it is making a difference. Two years after leaving the IHN shelter program and working with AfterCare case manager, 82 percent of families have retained housing.

In the past year, the case manager has connected six families to the Boner Center IDA program. The family starts an account and saves a minimum of $25 a month. When they hit $3,000, it’s matched and can be used for school, entrepreneurship or buying a home, according to Chapuran.

“So we’re hoping that through that program we’ll have some homeowners here in a few years,” he said. “Housing is the key. There’s no panacea. Right? But housing affects employment, affects school, affects every thing.”

Most families, according to Family Promise, stay about 60 days to save up the first month’s rent and security deposit.  The nonprofit now has a donor to provide a family’s security deposit, which according to studies, reduces the average family stay.

“We just gave a fighting chance to the family. The family did the work. It’s not a homeless person, it’s a mom who has three kids. One of them was diagnosed on the autism spectrum, she had to do appointments, lost her job and then it snowballed from there. It could happen to anybody,” said Chapuran. “We can stabilize those parents so that the kids’ lives hopefully are stable and in school. So we’ve got to take the long view.

Family Promise of Greater Indianapolis phone tally for two months.

Permanent housing for families, particularly with multiple bedrooms, is rare to find.

“Your family of five with dad, mom and three kids is shot. They wait. We’ve had a family that’s come back here twice despite our best efforts and getting social security and some other supports, and despite a part-time job has come back here twice. The mom has significant disabilities, retaining a job is hard. She’s half blind to be honest, and a permanent support-housing unit is necessary for her and her twins. But she’s been waiting nine months now.”

Besides family permanent housing, Family Promise is working to fill a 17-week gap from December to February. At that time, one rotation serving four families at a time closes. The nonprofit continues to recruit congregations.

Chapuran is hopeful that he will find new congregations and maximize the nonprofit’s existing resources.

But most importantly, he knows that volunteers getting to learn a family’s story can realize that it’s all shared experiences.

“Read the stories, but even more important than serving a meal at Dayspring, is talking to a family at Dayspring, learning a story. Learn that’s a mom, who went through 24-hour childbirth just like you, who then was worried about getting the baby to latch. It’s all shared experiences. “

Oct 16

Battling homelessness relies on dedication, collaboration

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

The thought process in itself is pretty elementary. Identify a problem, and then get smart heads get together to find a solution. On paper, it sounds good, but real life can be another story.

The problem of homelessness is an issue that has vexed politicians and social service agencies for a long time. It’s complicated because it is so multifaceted.

In previous nonprofit positions at the Damien Center in Indianapolis and the Orange County AIDS Services Foundation in California, Alan Witchey has worked with marginalized populations and saw how their plights can spiral into homelessness. Since 2015, he has been the executive director of the Indianapolis-based Coalition For Homelessness Intervention & Prevention (CHIP), and housing has become his primary job focus.

One thing he has come to believe is that solving the problem of homelessness has to be a group effort.

“Coming to CHIP was a great opportunity to think about how to solve homelessness from a collective perspective. An agency cannot solve a community problem alone. It can help people, and do good work, but it takes people working together, especially on a large issue like homelessness. One of the things, I think, has been very exciting is that I have really seen evolution and change in philosophy in Indianapolis among the homeless providers,” said Witchey, a 1990 graduate of Indiana University.

And what are some of the changes?

One is agreement to use a coordinated entry system. Together with providers, CHIP is launching a common housing application and vulnerability assessment.

According to Mike Chapuran, executive director of Family Promise, a nonprofit family shelter on the city’s Eastside, local shelters have verbally agreed to the updated system. Before now, a family seeking shelter would have to call each shelter to find one with a vacancy. Now, those seeking housing will complete an application, and CHIP will manage the list and prioritize the need.

And while it won’t immediately solve the capacity problem in the city for homeless families and individuals, it will prioritize housing, and add data to better understand the extent of the problem.  “That’s an enormous change for our community,” said Witchey.

CHIP realizes that the actual homeless numbers aren’t always easy to quantify. Every January, volunteers go to shelters, transitional housing and encampments to gain an annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count. This year’s results found the amount of people homeless in the city increased by 10 percent – giving Indianapolis the highest homeless count since 2014. Currently, 1,787 people are without homes, according to CHIP.

“We don’t ever think that we get to everybody, but we think we’re pretty good at counting, getting to a lot of people, not everybody,” Witchey said.

For example, the Hispanic homeless population is well hidden in Indianapolis and across the state. And Witchey believes there are other populations that are missed from the count.  The LGBTQ population, as well as some other youth populations, frequently double up or sleep on somebody’s couch and would be missed.

In July, CHIP teamed up with Outreach, which has been working with homeless youth for over 20 years, and the Indiana University Public Policy Institute (PPI) to conduct the first Youth Count Indy of ages 18 to 24. The data will help build a case for federal funding, expand advocacy efforts and educate the public. Outreach, a faith-based nonprofit, opened a new program facility on the city’s Eastside in April and hopes to serve more than 400 to 425 annually.

CHIP is not a direct service provider, but is helping to lead the way and change systems.

“I think we’re going in the right direction, and we still have a ways to go. There are some communities that are way ahead of us, and we haven’t been acting this way for a long time.

“You cannot expect a homeless service provider to be thinking systemically because they are dealing with the immediate crisis. People are walking in the door homeless every day, and they’re trying solve having no place to live,” said Witchey.

Chapuran agrees that his staff is constantly responding to a family’s crisis. When a mom needs a ride to work, it’s difficult say “no” because a collaborative meeting takes precedence. But he also understands it is important work for changes to happen.

Collaborative work can be challenging. While an agency receiving HUD funding has a requirement to participate in developing collaborative solutions, many of Indianapolis’ providers are privately funded. Witchey believes it’s CHIP’s job to build a compelling case to work together.

One of those changes has been the work of street workers. In August, CHIP hired Tom Tuttle, a social worker with 10 years experience, to manage the Street Reach Indy program. While a similar program to give money to organizations rather than panhandlers started in 2014, this one has a full-time position dedicated to outreach Downtown and work with businesses.

There was a time when every agency did its own street operation, sometimes reaching the same person in the same day. But that has changed in the past five years. Now, Professional Blended Street Outreach (PBSO) combines 22 different agencies and has standards for the way services are provided.

These teams provide first-response services to the city’s homeless and are made up of organizations that include local law-enforcement, nonprofits, health providers and mental health entities. Horizon House does the on-the-ground coordination.

CHIP has begun hosting quarterly provider meetings and creating common outcomes.  At these sessions, providers talk about how individual programs and agencies are doing based on those agreed-upon metrics.

Chapuran believes that Witchey is bringing providers the best practices from HUD and randomized studies that help support all of their work. Statistics show that 93 percent of the homeless who are rehoused remain housed one year later, and 94 percent of those who receive homeless prevention do not fall into homelessness over the coming year.

And while providers have made changes, Indianapolis’ housing resources have lagged. In his annual State of the City address, Mayor Hogsett committed to provide 400 additional spots for homeless residents.

According to CHIP, last year the city had 1,059 shelter beds, and 26 beds in two shelters dedicated to youth. While the city’s homeless population is smaller than other large cities, a study concluded that faith-based groups provide 77 percent of beds for Indianapolis’ homeless. So the city’s involvement is key.

Hogsett directive was simple. “We need this challenge as a community to push ourselves. And this community can rise to help solve it,” he said.

As part of the solution, CHIP, together with United Way of Central Indiana and Eskenzi Health, created and funded a new position called the Senior Strategy Director for Homelessness. Since August, Rodney Stockment has been on the job. He is responsible for helping to align the city’s efforts around homelessness and to address the challenge of finding the 400 additional beds.

“He really is mapping it out and going through all the different affordable housing projects and programs. He is finding out where there are empty units, where there are upcoming units and identifying those, so we can actually place people in them. And then, we’re working with different funders to help fund either temporary rental subsides or ongoing subsides to help people as they move into those units. So it really is a collaborative effort, but it’s great that we were able to create this position at the city,” said Witchey.

The funders envisioned a two-to-three year position focused on how to identify potential units and connecting homeless people to those units. By the end of September, Stockment had identified 168 units of the 400.

For additional assistance, CHIP brought members of the Cleveland Mediation Center to Indianapolis for a two-day divergent training on how to mediate crisis situations.

Chapuran said the training can help with immediate needs.

“We’re excited about beginning the conversation to see how we can with modest financial support and in-home case management potentially keep a family that needs housing in the home where they’re staying and help manage a conflict. While doubling up is not a perfect solution, if there’s no shelter space, it’s better than the street,” said Chapuran.

CHIP has also developed program standards and strategies for outreach, transitional housing and permanent housing.

And it has piloted new models. Over the last year and a half, Indianapolis has invested in a Housing-First model and tracked its progress. Called Penn Place, the 38 furnished one-bedroom apartments opened last winter. Residents are surrounded by support services. Witchey said an evaluation of the facility was just completed.

“A lot of those pieces have existed for many years here, but there wasn’t a sort of consistent effort to bring it here and have fidelity to that model. So we did that when we opened Penn Place about a year and a half ago, which was a collaborative between BWI Developers, Insight Development Corporation, Indianapolis Housing Authority, Eskenazi, Midtown Mental Health and Horizon House.

Are we close to solving the homeless problem?

According to Chapuran, “Other cities have demonstrated what’s possible. Utah, especially Salt Lake City has addressed and “solved” the problem of homeless veterans.

“We know that individuals are going to be without homes. There will be family that kicks them out, there will be evictions, but can we make sure that they have a roof over their heads on the day that they become homeless. There are cities that have done that.

“So in that sense, we know the solutions are out there. But in Indy right now, we are working towards them. Thanks to CHIP in the last year, especially, we are finally implementing and having the working groups create policies and procedures around what other cities are doing, and so that gives me a lot of hope,” he said.

Jul 17

Homeless resources in Indianapolis

By Feature, Programming

This week, Indianapolis Star reporter, Maureen Gilmer, wrote a story about seeking help for a homeless mom. The story referenced the Street Outreach Rapid Response Team, and other nonprofits that acted immediately to secure a spot for this family. To learn more about Indianapolis’ services, read her article.

Just like that, within three hours, a desperate young mom and her kids were rescued from an uncertain future. I was astounded at how quickly this family got the help they desperately needed, but at the same time, I know there are others who aren’t as lucky as Brown and her family.

These kinds of street rescues are what Street Outreach Rapid Response Team and Professional Blended Street Outreach are built to do. The rapid response team is actually a network of 67 people representing 22 organizations in the city — shelters, hospitals, mental health agencies, veterans’ groups, even animal welfare advocates.

“We’ve identified gaps in services available on the streets for people, and we’ve brought those folks together to help those most vulnerable,” said team coordinator Melissa Burgess.

When an email goes out to the group, “everybody jumps up and is ready to help if they’re able to,” she said.

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May 08

Ready, set, go: Boys & Girls Clubs help kids look beyond high school

By Feature, Programming

By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors

For Linda Foster, 16, and Taneiscia Persinger, 15, middle school was a struggle. Both had blase attitudes about school, which were reflected in their grades.

Then about three years ago, they each had a relative who cajoled them to join the Boys & Girls Club in their neighborhoods. That’s when things began to turn around. Now the sophomore and freshman give education a “5” in its importance and both have aspirations to attend college.

“In my family, my mom, my grandma, my aunt, my great grandma, none of them went to college. I want to be the first girl in my family to actually go to college and break that chain,” said Foster, who attends Arsensal New Tech High School.

Persinger believes that education is imperative for everything – to drive, to write to read.

Why did their attitudes toward school change?

Foster credits the after-school and summer programs at Wheeler-Dowe at 30th Street and Keystone Avenue and Persinger the Keenan-Stahl club on Troy Avenue.

“There are a lot of staff members who care about my education and me making it somewhere. They’re all different. They all push you in different ways, and I say the staff member that pushes me the most and keeps it most real with me is Miss Bria Amons because she doesn’t sugarcoat anything,” said Foster.

According to LeeAnn Harris, the director of club operations, education has always been a key program component, but for the past six years, college and career readiness has become a club priority. Working for the clubs since 1989, Harris has seen lots of societal changes including lack of involvement of parents involvement, all part of what spurred a conversation in 2011 to fine tune the clubs’ focus and investment.

“We took a really hard look and gathered all of full- and part-time staff. We asked each staff member to think about “a” child that they saw at the club everyday and asked them to think about that kid growing up at the club through the age of 18, and then aging out of the club.

“What impact do you want to say you had on that young person? What skills do you want them to leave with? What attitudes do you want them to leave with? What do you want them to take away?”

At the first discussion with the clubs’ 130 staff members, three big areas emerged — job readiness/academic success, healthy lifestyles and character and leadership development.

After that meeting, Harris reached out to individual clubs. While she walked away from those conversations confident that if any staff member who overheard kids talking about delinquent activity, they would intervene, she also recognized that 90 percent of club staff watched kids walk daily and chuck their backpacks in the corner. As Harris and club leadership saw it, academic success and job readiness had the most potential for growth.

“It wasn’t our natural responsibility. But because of who we are, because we care about kids, because staff said it’s important to see kids be academically successful, it became our responsibility to do something about it,” said Harris.

Next, Harris started collecting data on club attendees — ISTEP pass-rate data, graduation data and the school-dropout data for the feeder schools for each of the clubs – to identify the need and create a baseline measurement.

In the fall of 2011, each club added a full-time education director. Lilly Endowment helped pay for a two-year project with the Center for After-School Education, providing professional development for full-time and part-time staff. The center’s staff observed club programs and helped staff write action plans to improve programming and recommended regularly sharing learning activities between clubs. Now, every month at staff meetings, the host staff begins by engaging the group in a high-yield learning activity.

It didn’t take long for to realize that one education director for each Boys & Girls club wasn’t enough and in the fall of 2012, the clubs added full-time graduation counselors.

Supporting this effort is a full-time college readiness coordinator who works with young people at all of the clubs getting them on track to college. Since September, Jane Hurdish has served in that role, dividing her time between the five clubs.

Now instead of putting the backpacks in the corner, each club has a daily Power Hour where the emphasis is on homework. Everyone at the club is engaged in learning activities, working on tomorrow’s homework, a long-term school project or investing time in enrichment-learning activities. Clubs involve kids in a Career Launch curriculum to expose them to different careers and the difference between a job and career. Last summer the clubs offered Take-a-Girl-to-Work Day, and this summer the clubs will add boys. One of the topics the clubs asked the volunteer professional to discuss with the kids was benefits.

“We had to break that down for the volunteers and say, ‘We don’t mean explain your 501(c) 3, your 401(k), just tell them you get paid even when you are sick. That will blow their minds.’

“There are few if any people in the lives of most of our club members who get paid sick time or get paid vacation share time. They’re amazed you have a refrigerator where you work, and you can get free soda. You get a lunch break and you get paid while you’re eating lunch. Most of the people in their lives have jobs, and they don’t know that there are other options,” said Harris.

According to Harris, when the college readiness program first started, kids had unrealistic ideas about school. Some thought they were to going to go to UNC and play basketball just because they wanted to. She shared a story about a high school student who didn’t realize she had to pass classes to graduate from high school. She had taken all the classes on the list to get her Core 40 diploma, but didn’t realize until she approached graduation that she wouldn’t be graduating.

“There is no one telling them that information. What we’re trying to do is to create opportunities for our young people to be able to get good jobs that will support them and allow them to live the life that they want for themselves. It’s understanding what the difference between a job and a career and what benefits are.”

Originally, Hurdish wanted formal graduation plans for each student, but realized it needs to be more informal.

“A lot of the focus for College Readiness has been understanding that college doesn’t have to mean a traditional four-year school. I think some of the kids think that’s the expectation, and if that’s not what they’re going to do, then there’s really no place for me in this conversation,” said Hurdish.

To get to those conversations, Hurdish begins with talking about personal and family barriers and then branching off that.

“Before we can talk about the logistics like SATs and GPAs and all that, just having conversations about what are barriers to getting to college. A lot of times the answer is, ‘I don’t know if I’m even going to graduate high school.’ Or ‘there’s no way I’m going to be able to afford it,’” she said.

Teenagers have the opportunity to tour college campuses in the fall and spring. They earn points for volunteering with younger kids, leadership tasks and involvement in college readiness activities. There are also tours of Indiana campuses for younger teens. The overall goal is to give urban students exposure to college life.

Hurdish said that the college tours have had a ripple effect.

“The college tours have become a big thing. The teams are really into it and feel set apart if they go on a trip. And so I think what happens that’s even cooler, is they go back to the club and they talk about it, and we hang up pictures of the trip. It’s part of the conversation starter with other kids,” she said.

Over spring break, club members, their graduation counselors and Hurdish traveled to Ohio to tour two colleges and spent time at a Cincinnati Boys & Girls Club. In advance of the tour, each student had to research a school and develop questions for tour guides. Their questions — What is it like on campus? How many people stay in one dorm? What does your GPA have to be to go? – help them change some of the previous misconceptions and mindsets.

Foster and Persinger were part of the group of 24 that visited Wilberforce University, the first private HBCU, and the University of Cincinnati, which has the first living-learning community on a campus that focuses on first-generation college students.

Both Foster and Persinger were intrigued by Wilberforce.

“Wilberforce caught my eye. I knew right when I stepped on the campus, it was just so small, but there was kids communicating. All the groups came together, so it wasn’t like a rivalry. They were like, ‘How you doing today?’” said Persinger.

It also prompted more questions and reflections.

“How am I going to get there because I’m not going to be able to pay for that? But the B&G Club, that’s my rescue to get to college, because I know that they can help,” said Persinger.

And that includes getting them enrolled for the 21st Century Scholars program, so that they have access to resources. There are regular check-ins to see if teens are completing the requirements.

Persinger is hopeful that there is another resource.

According to Harris, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis has the largest endowed scholarship program of any in the country. Started privately, CICF manages 28 funds, the Dr. James R. East Scholarship Programs.

Scholarships are available to any graduating senior going on to a post-secondary institution, which could be vocational, two-year or four-year programs. One requirement is that the applicant must have been a member for at least three years at any age.

In 2013, when Harris began to manage the scholarship, four teens applied. Last year, four years after graduation counselors were in place, 15 applied.

“I think that impact in four years speaks volumes about how important those graduation counselors and college readiness program were. My goal is if we can stay at that higher number and keep kids in school, then we end up utilizing each of those scholarship funds. I would love to have that challenge,” said Harris.