Community Coaches Take Their Dedication to the Next Level!

In this holiday season, The Youth Foundation has been busy helping our high school students gear up for their future success.  On November 8, the Community Coaches began attending a DREAM First study group with Sara Snowwhite, a Battle Mountain High School Teacher, and myself. DREAM First is a groundbreaking, new program that contains all of The Youth Foundation’s pre-collegiate components. The Program helps its students to not only dream about their futures, but also teaches them how to realize them.

The DREAM stands for Developing Readiness for College, Exploring Careers, and Motivating to succeed and is available to all Community Coaches.  Regular scheduled academic time proved necessary at the beginning of the school year when we learned that while some Community Coaches had stellar GPA’s, others struggled or lacked motivation toward their schoolwork.  In order to help to remedy this situation, in October The Youth Foundation implemented a policy that all Community Coaches must go beyond just having a C average in school, instead insisting on a minimum of all C’s in order to work in Pwr Hrs after school. We began checking students’ grades according to their Powerschool record on a weekly basis.  However, students who don’t qualify are not removed from the program. Instead they are asked to attend the study session and are given one-on-one attention and tutoring. In the few weeks since the study group began meeting, almost every student involved with DREAM First’s grades have improved.

Those Community Coasches who do qualify get to work in PwrHrs, gaining skills hands-on, and receive bi-monthly trainings from Mike Santambrogio, The Youth Foundation’s Health and Wellness Coordinator, along with the help of Hugo Castillo, our “top dawg” Community Coach mentor! 

            The ninth, tenth, and eleventh graders involved with The Youth Foundation are held to high standards, and The Youth Foundation has noticed the Community Coaches gaining a vision of how to attain their dreams.  This manifests itself through the youth being accountable, gaining responsibility, and learning to demonstrate The Youth Foundation’s nine core values in their every day lives, not just in PwrHrs or in the classroom. Among these talented youth are students who dream of being doctors, dancers, immigration lawyers, and psychologists.  But there is one dream they all share: to contribute to their world in a positive way by helping others.  Through their work with The Youth Foundation, they are achieving that goal and bringing joy to their community.  Thank you very much to everyone involved with the Community Coaches and DREAM First for their expertise and tireless work to ensure the well-being of the youth we work with! 

Dana Bronfman, DREAM First and Scholarship Coordinator