Michigan High School Ethics Bowl

In February, Educate Youth competed in the Michigan High School Ethics Bowl held at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor.

Ethics Bowl alumni and 2023 graduate, Jordan Dorsey, has returned as Assistant Coach for the 2024 Ethics Bowl on February 3rd. We have been hard at work preparing for the upcoming competition and are looking forward to it!

Donor Celebration & Intergenerational Art Showcase

Educate Youth would not be able to function without our generous donors, and we wanted to make sure they were appropriately honored. In April, we held our Donor Celebration event which included an Intergenerational Art Showcase where students presented their vision boards, art, poetry and even played the drums for us!

L.O.V.E. Is The Answer

Educate Youth also continued our involvement with the L.O.V.E. Is The Answer movement. In May, we held an event to celebrate our Department of Justice grant that has allowed us to continue this work. We have also shown and facilitated discussions for WALKING WHILE BLACK: L.O.V.E. Is The Answer, a film by A.J. Ali.

Community Violence Intervention Summit

Educate Youth had the opportunity to attend the Community Violence Intervention Summit in early May, hosted by the Community Violence Intervention Team that Gail is a member of. It was a very insightful and educational afternoon where we attended breakout sessions on grief, trauma and more. As an added bonus, our table was next to The Be Creative Studio with our dear friend Curtis Wallace.

Graduation!!

Educate Youth welcomed two more high school graduates to our wall at the end of the 2022-23 school year. Morgan earned her high school diploma from Huron High School, and Jordan earned his from Washtenaw Technical Middle College.

Hanging Out On Campus

Educate Youth made quite a few trips to different college campuses this year. We visited Wayne State University with Future Corp for a tour led by two Educate Youth alumni, Jamal and Justin. 11th and 12th also took a trip with our dear friend and Professor Emeritus Dr. Richard Thomas to his Alma mater, Michigan State University. We also visited Eastern Michigan University a few times to hang out at the REC/IM, to host our donor celebration, and to see a football game with Groove Phi Groove.

Brains!

Educate Youth has been utilizing our alumni and staff connection, Justin, who is pursuing his PhD in Neuroscience at Wayne State University. We visited his lab for Brain Awareness Day at the Detroit Science Center where students had the opportunity to hold a human brain! His colleague Dr. Hilary Marusak also visited us in the summer program to give more students to see and feel the brains!

College Students at the Clubhouse!

Educate Youth has had college students each semester of 2023, from a variety of schools and departments. In the winter, we hosted a MacKenzie, a Communication student from Eastern Michigan University, who helped to plan our donor celebration and silent auction. In the Spring/Summer semester, we welcomed Maria, Kayla, Kendra and Stefon from the Eastern Michigan University School of Social Work, who spent time with us through the summer program and helped plan for the after school program. This fall, we worked with EMU College of Education students Kayla, Madison, Nick, Yuma and Morgan, we each spent one day of the week tutoring. We have also just welcomed Kat, who is studying Social Work at Western Michigan University, for her senior placement!

The Belanger-Cushman Award

The Belanger-Cushman award has been created to honor graduating seniors for personal growth throughout their high school career. It was given to Educate Youth by Emily Belanger to honor her mother who was a teacher, then a guidance counselor for over 30 years. 

When Jane was a counselor, she saw that most of the end-of- year awards went the kids who got good grades, excelled at sports, etc. Many of them had always excelled, sometimes without much effort or commitment. She saw a need to honor the kid who had grown the most, academically and personally, over the four years. They could be someone who had climbed their way from D’s and F’s to C’s, someone who had been suspended time after time to someone who came to school every day and did the work. She said that those efforts were often harder than those at the top. 

So, every year, with her own money, she would give the kid who had grown the most over the 4 years a crisp, hundred dollar bill (remember this was the 80’s), and the biggest, fluffiest teddy bear she could find at the toy store. She would present the money and the bear at the annual end-of-year award ceremony. 

On a walk around Matthaei Gardens, her daughter, Emily, was telling Gail about her mother and had the idea of continuing the award for the graduating class at Educate Youth. When Gail responded with the enthusiastic thoughts of her kids, Emily was happy to amend the award to include all the graduating seniors with an award of $250 (which coincidentally is close to what that 1980’s $100 would be worth today.)

The first set of recipients of the award will be our 2024 high school graduates, DeShawn, Gabe, Kiki and Ramses, who will be graduating from Global Educational Excellence, Washtenaw Technical Middle College, Washtenaw International High School, and Arbor Prepatory High School!

Other Kind Souls

In addition to the Von Voigtlander Foundation, Educate Youth is thankful to the following organizations, foundations, corporations and groups for their support in 2023. Thank you very much to the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and their Youth Council, Community, Ypsilanti Area Community, and African American Endowment funds, United Way for Southeastern Michigan (formerly known as the United Way of Washtenaw County), Michigan After School Partnership, Washtenaw County Health Department, Comcast, AT&T, Ann Arbor Women for Good, Zingerman's, University Bank, Wednesday Women's Wine Down Golf League, Reset Within, California Pizza Kitchen, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Panera Bread, Panda Express, Bank of Ann Arbor, Helm, and the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

Educate Youth blessed to have a growing list of independent donors from all across the country, each of which we are so very thankful for. We would like to take a moment to also thank Betty Widgeon and McLaine & Andrew Mast for their generosity as monthly donors.

Finally, Educate Youth would like to acknowledge our board of directors for the time the devote to ensuring things at the Clubhouse are able to run as smoothly as they do. Thank you to Dr. Michael Mashif White, our board president, Bethany Freeland, our immediate past board co-president, and Nat Alston, Sam Estenson, Toni Evans, Jorge Guzman de Branoff, Erica Jenkins & Dr. Gina Wilson for their commitment and service as board members.