Teen Organizing Team Testifies to Top Priorities

By Sarah O'Connor, Lenox Community and B-PEACE Teen Organizer

Senior Teen Organizer Tahnaree Evans testified in front of the Boston City Council about urgent civic priorities: investment of city resources for safer parks, fully funded and high quality public schools, and economic opportunities for teens! It was a hearing called by City Councillor Andrea Campbell, who represents Tahanree's neighborhood in Dorchester, to explore the network of youth programs in Boston that are working to reduce neighborhood violence. Tahnaree spoke powerfully about the ways that St. Stephen's Youth Programs is striving to create circles of care around each young people we serve, meeting their day-to-day needs and helping them to feel safe, big, and connected. She talked about her own experience as a Counselor-in-Training, mentoring younger students and helping  them grow and thrive. Tahnaree is now employed as a community organizer, fighting for justice and equity in the distribution of resources and opportunities for young people across the city. The teen organizing team (all 20 members!) were there to support her, and they finished the City Hall experience with a stop by the election division to register new voters. 

Sisters on the Slopes!

By Sandy Quispe, B-READY Lead Counselor

On Saturday February 27th, girls from St. Stephen's YLC (Youth Leadership Corps) and S2POT Programs hit the slopes!  Thanks to Youth Enrichment Services, eleven girls and four women went on a ski trip. Youth Enrichment Services (YES) is a non-profit organization which provides affordable and exciting sports-based youth programs and leadership development for Boston children and teens.  During the week, the girls were able to go to the South End YES facility to learn about what YES does, where we were going, and get fitted with all of their gear (snowboard/skis, boots, snow pants, jackets, etc.) 

This is a trip that has been happening over the years and our girls love it! We met early on Saturday at YES. The girls got on a bus that took them to Cranmore where Olympian Julia Ford was attending a ski race. The girls met Julia Ford, asked her questions about her career, and even got to take a picture with her! 

YES placed the girls into small groups  to teach them the basics before allowing them to hit the bunny slopes. Most of the girls tried skiing or snowboarding for the first time ever. Despite a couple of falls, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and came home on the bus proud, exhausted, and in one piece.  We cannot WAIT for next year's trip!

Celebrating Read Across America Day at the Blackstone!

By Maureen Burns, SSYP’s South End School and Community Organizer

On Friday March 4th, forty volunteers gathered in the Library at the Blackstone Innovation School in celebration of the Sixth Annual Read Across America Day sponsored by St. Stephen’s Youth Programs.  The library was decorated with a Dr. Seuss theme for the occasion; even Clifford The Dog sported a Cat in the Hat chapeau!  The event began with welcoming addresses from members of the Blackstone Executive Leadership Team and a City Year Corp Member, followed by a reflection from Bishop Alan Gates of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and Tricia Harvey, SSYP’s Library Coordinator.

After the celebration in the library, volunteers launched into an afternoon of read alouds.  Students were very excited to host volunteer readers in their classrooms.  A volunteer in the kindergarten class commented: “We loved the book we read in our small group. I was impressed! The Eiffel Tower was in the background on one page and before I could tell them what it was, they told me it was the Eiffel Tower and they knew all about it!”

The volunteers included Blackstone School parents, South End community members, members of faith- based organizations, and City Year sponsors. All of the volunteers shared their love of literacy with the young scholars of the Blackstone!

Volunteers at RAAD listen to welcoming addresses.

St. Stephen's Youth Programs has been coordinating the Blackstone Library for 6 years.

Coding is Cool at Career Day for LEARN

Zac Delagrange, Software Engineer at BitSight Technologies, shows children code at career day.

By Maggie Casey, Site Director at St. Augustine and St. Martin

On Friday, March 4th, students at the St. Augustine and St. Martin LEARN program participated in a hands-on career day with visiting professionals.  Visual Artist and Post Production Film Editor Jasmine Vazquez took time off from her job at Peel&Eat to teach a rotation about careers in art. Harvard Physicist Dave Patterson lead activities about engineering and design.  Software Automation Engineer Zac Delagrange, from BitSight Technologies, taught the group about programming.  Zac is picture above answering questions and showing the children code.  It was a wonderful day of exploratory learning and we hope to do a follow-up career day later in the spring. 

Imagination Stations Spark Creative Learning

LEARN has spent the past four Mondays after snack in Imagination Stations. Imagination Stations are a way for our elementary students to spend an extended amount of time in project-based learning: for four weeks in a row, students spend time learning about a topic of their choice. Right now, the choices are: science, yoga, cooking, and singing.

The singing rotation is being taught by Kate, one of our volunteers from Boston College. Kate is part of the PULSE program at BC, which partners students with non-profits in Boston to serve two days a week, in conjunction with philosophy and theology classes, for the entire academic year.

During the PULSE students’ second semester at St. Stephen’s, we offer more leadership opportunities for them, such as leading Imagination Stations. Kate, who usually works with our YLC middle schoolers, volunteered to spend some time with LEARN to teach them singing.

A group of around fifteen enthusiastic elementary students chose to learn singing, and they have spent the past four Monday afternoons in the church, playing freeze dance, learning about notes and scales, and practicing a song that they will perform to the other groups at the end of the four weeks. Kate’s choice for them to sing? “Lean on Me.”

“The song promotes a feeling of community that I hope they feel at St. Stephen’s,” Kate said.

“I chose the singing Imagination Station so that we can show off our talents to the other groups” said Leiya, a second-grader in the group.

Learning to Listen During After-School

By Maggie Needham, Academic Coordinator and Lead Counselor

This trimester, the theme for our programming is feeling connected. During B-READY After-School, student spend all their time together with the other students in their groups. In LEARN, the Bridges (grades 1-2) have been spending the last couple weeks really working on building respect and community within our group.

One way that we’ve been learning respect is through practicing our listening skills. It’s important for us all to listen not just to staff members and volunteers, but to each other

Last week, we sat down in a circle and established a talking piece in our circle. We reviewed the expectations of using a talking piece: Whoever is holding it has their turn to talk. Whoever is not holding it has their turn to listen. No one interrupts. We each have a turn as the talking piece goes around the circle.

I offered a question to the group: Who is your role model?

We went around the circle. One student, Hanlet, smiled and referenced another student in the group: “My role model is my best friend Julean because he is fun and plays with me.” Another student, Jianna, talked about her mom, who is “always nice to me.” When a second grader, Chiyann, got the talking piece, she referenced the site director at St. Stephen’s, saying, “My role model is Mayra, because she makes a place where kids can go after school.”

Paying attention for so long is difficult for young people, and they still sometimes couldn’t resist a side conversation or a small outburst. But during this activity, the students focused on listening to each other, learning more about each other, and growing as a community -- learning to feel connected!

Two students pose with their writing on a whiteboard: "I'm happy to be here!!!!!!"

JCRC's ReachOut! Program Reaches Out to Middle Schoolers

By Maggie Needham, Academic Coordinator and Lead Counselor

Twice a week, when our B-READY elementary schoolers get picked up at 6:00pm, St. Stephen’s offers Academic Nights, a space for teens and middle schoolers to spend time on their homework with staff members and volunteer tutors.

Many of our all-star volunteers during Academic Nights come from the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC). JCRC’s ReachOut! program connects young Jewish professionals who want to get involved in social justice issues to organizations like St. Stephen’s Youth Programs, and they have made a huge impact on our Academic Nights.

Since January, we’ve been implementing a new system for our JCRC volunteers to work with our middle schoolers during Academic Nights. Rather than having the volunteers be available to any students who want help, we have paired up each of our JCRC volunteers with a specific group of three or four middle schoolers who regularly attend Academic Nights.

This system allows students and volunteers to build ongoing relationships from one week to the next and creates continuity of support. The middle schoolers can now expect the same volunteer to be there, each week, to check up on them and their homework. This consistency helps to hold both our students and our volunteers accountable to each other. It also gives the students a key, expected person they can turn to every week for help.

We are grateful for our partnership with JCRC and can already see how our students and volunteers are growing during Academic Nights!

Volunteers from JCRC's ReachOut! program do homework with middle school students

JCRC volunteers are matched with students for the whole semester, creating continuity in relationships

Sharing the Story of Our School Partnership

St. Stephen’s Youth Programs was honored to share the story of our partnership with the Blackstone Innovation School at the New England Providence All Our Children Conference.  All Our Children is a national network of school- church partnerships, of which St. Stephen’s is a founding member.

Our story began in 2010, when Blackstone’s test scores were in the lowest 5% of the state’s and the school started the Turnaround process.  At our after-school program, we saw that our Blackstone students were struggling in reading.  When we learned the Blackstone lacked a functional library, we could not overlook the opportunity for partnership.  Today, the Blackstone Library, which is entirely staffed by volunteers, welcomes 19 classes on a weekly basis.  Other school partners, such as City Year and Big Sisters, Big Brothers use the space as well.

In addition to sharing our story, our conference session focused on building relationships with the leaders in the room.  Fifteen church and school leaders come from New Bedford, Salem, Lynn, and the Cape as well as New Hampshire and Connecticut to learn from our partnership and share their own successes and struggles.  Across geographic areas, participants stated that their motivation for entering into a partnership with a public school was to provide the resources the school can’t prioritize.  With increasing emphasis on standardized test scores, schools do not have the in-house resources to provide programming in reading, physical activity, and the arts. This is where community partners, both faith- based and secular, can step in.

By Maureen Burns, School and Community Organizer

Maureen Burns presents the story of St. Stephen's Youth Programs Partnership with the Blackstone Innovation School

Peace Through Play at B-READY at St. Augustine and St. Martin

Volunteers from a Northeastern University student service organization called Peace Through Play work with B-READY students at St. Augustine and St. Martin. Peace Through Play coordinator Avery Schnell wrote these reflections for their biannual newsletter:

"Every week we go to Lenox on Tuesday and Thursday and work with kids ages 4-10. On Tuesdays, School Climate joins volunteers to make absolutely amazing, interactive crafts! We like to utilize both outdoor and indoor spaces to play age-appropriate and culturally relevant, engaging games with the kids!

Kids are extremely active, and because we work with kids in an extremely wide age bracket, it can be hard to hold everyone’s attention. One of our most successful moments was when we were able to get one of the four year olds in our group to engage with “take as much as you want.” He was so excited to participate that he could barely stay in his seat! We have also had several sweet moments. For example, during the week of conflict resolution, one of the younger kids took the classroom’s attention and articulately to all of her peers why it is important to respect others and work together. It is moments like these that show the empowerment of play!"

School Climate coordinator Jess Mitchell wrote:

"At the [B-READY at St. Augustine and St. Martin] chapter of School Climate, first graders helped come up with a “recipe for respect” while making yummy no-bake granola bars. Kids shared a way to show respect before helping to put a healthy ingredient in the bowl or to stir the mixture in the bowl. These kids suggested dozens of ways to respect their families, friends, teachers, neighbors, and many more, and also showed respect to their classmates during the entire activity.

School Climate is PTP’s program for enriching the experience of peace with crafts and activities that the kids might not be doing in other groups. To supplement teaching through play, School Climate programs teach through creating and doing. At Lenox, volunteers alternated between working with a younger group and an older group, creating no-bake treats and going on scavenger hunts."

B-READY students are looking forward to more Peace Through Play activities this semester!

B-Ready students enjoy fun Peace through Play activities!

Peace through play volunteers work with b-ready students on positive conflict resolution

Fostering A Lifelong Love of Literacy!

Most library classes at the Blackstone Library begin the same way-- twenty or more students file in, place their books in the “return” bucket, and take a seat on the rug.  If the class is kindergarden, there is usually a little bit of squirming on the rug.  If the class is third grade or older, at least one student might inquire about the status of the library’s most popular collection,The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  Once the class is comfortably seated on the rug, one of the librarians will read to them.  For the older classes, read alouds might include a chapter of the Roald Dahl book the class is reading together.  For younger classes, the story might be a Mo Willems picture book that even has the teacher laughing.  Following the read-aloud, the students have time to look through the collection and select one to check out for the week.

The library currently sees nineteen classrooms on a weekly basis, from the three-year-olds in K-0 to the fifth grade, the oldest grade at the Blackstone.  The librarians are all volunteers; they are each committed to overseeing some of the thirty-minute library classes that happen every day of the week.  Yet--and not surprisingly--the most popular member of the library team is a knit red dog mascot named Clifford.  Students are very interested in his book selections, even though he usually has has his nose in a book about himself or other dogs.  The library is also a space shared by other programs at the Blackstone School, including Big Sisters and Starfish, City Year’s after school program.    

This year marks the sixth year of Blackstone Library, the product of the thriving partnership between St. Stephen’s Youth Programs and the Blackstone Innovation School.  Previously, the school did not have an operational library and the space the library currently occupies was a dusty, musty space used for storage.  Once the Blackstone made the need for a library known, St. Stephen’s, along with Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester, came together to clean the space, collect and organize books.  Leaders worked with the school’s staff to integrate the library into the Blackstone.  Volunteers from Wellesley and Simmons College were also instrumental in the foundation of the library.  The library officially opened on March 2nd, 2010.  The ribbon cutting ceremony was part of the Blackstone’s Read Across America Day celebration, a holiday that coincides with Dr. Seuss’s birthday!

At the launch of this school year, the library welcomed a new Library Coordinator, a new Blackstone Partnership Coordinator, and a handful of new volunteers!  These volunteers include a group from the Emmanuel Gospel Center, located across the street from the Blackstone.  One EGC volunteer shared how happy she was to be involved with a neighboring school on a regular basis and how much the staff, including their director, enjoyed interacting with their class.  Because of their support, an additional kindergarten class is able to regularly come to the library!  In addition to welcoming more kindergarten classes, the library is hosting Multiple Disabilities classes for the first time this year.  The library is also working to add more Spanish language books to its 10,500 volume collection.

Volunteers help students check out books in the Blackstone Library

Clifford reads about Clifford!

Students learn to love reading together

To volunteer as a classroom reader during this year’s Read Across America Day Celebration at the Blackstone on Friday, March 4th from 1-3PM, or to learn more about ways to get involved with the Blackstone Library, contact Maureen Burns at maureen@ststephensbos.org.

PARENT ORGANIZING: BECOMING THE AWESOME PARENT YOU ALREADY ARE

The first-ever Parenting Workshop series at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs is off to a fantastic start! St. Stephen’s Youth Programs is partnering with Families First  to offer a series of four workshops for parents to gain skills and confidence in their parenting. During the first workshop, which focused on creating homework-healthy households, parents learned how to adapt the homework environment to individual learning styles and work with their child to create a routine. The highlight of the second workshop on school partnerships was parents role-playing a parent-teacher conference at their child’s school. Parents have been loving the workshops so far. In the words of one mom, “It was very helpful. I was happy with everything and the atmosphere is very comfortable.” The next two workshops will cover Parenting and Technology (March 8th), and Challenges and Changes (March 22nd). This series is offered in Spanish and is open to the public. If you or someone you know would like to attend, please contact Ariel (ariel@ststephensbos.org).

Parents learn about strategies for productive parent-teacher meetings at their student’s school.

Parents share stories with one another at the second Parenting Workshop.

Everything Going On!

At St. Stephen's Youth Programs, there is ALWAYS a lot going on! The building is open seven days a week and welcomes more than 150 youth, college students, adult volunteers and others every Monday through Friday. Three nights a week, fifty middle and high school students stay to get help with their academic work or build their professional skills. 

Tuesdays are supposed to be one of the less busy nights. But that was not true on Tuesday February 9th! There were three simultaneous things happening:

A mentor training in which our college and career mentors learned  more about implicit bias and the ways race and class issues play into their mentoring pairs. And they built skills to build relationships across difference and to overcome some of the challenges these implicit biases create. 

A parent workshop for parents of our B-READY students to learn more about how to support their child's learning, including how to build better connections with the child's teachers and best use parent-teacher conferences.

A BRIDGE Scholar meeting for parents of the teens who will be traveling to North Carolina in April for a service-learning trip where they will discover Appalachia, learn about rural poverty, and help a family improve their home. 

The entire building of St. Stephen's was abuzz with people, learning, and leadership growth! 

Signs point parents, young people, and mentors to the right place.

Service to Justice: St. Stephen's Sixth annual MLK Day of Action at the Blackstone School

By Sarah O'Connor

On Monday, January 18th, in celebration of the Martin Luther King Day holiday, over 200 people from thirty organizations gathered at the Blackstone Innovation School for the Sixth Annual MLK Day of Action.  This day was organized collaboratively by St. Stephen's Youth Programs, the Blackstone Innovation School, City Year, the Massachusetts Service Alliance, and the B-PEACE for Jorge Campaign. Volunteers from the South End community, numerous AmeriCorps groups, and churches and other faith institutions from across greater Boston spent the day brightening hallways with colorful paint, organizing the school library (which is run by St. Stephen's and staffed by partner church volunteers), building classroom storage space, and creating educational materials for lessons. A team also reclaimed the greenhouse from cacti that have been growing for more than four decades, creating areas for desert and temperate flora and preparing for spring science projects. 

State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz was there with her staff team. They worked with teens from St. Stephen's Youth Programs and Hidri Boston, an Eritrean youth group, to paint four murals of heroes with Puerto Rican heritage, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and independence movement leader Dr. Ramon Betances.  These murals will be displayed in the Blackstone School entrance area to inspire students toward similar greatness. Senator Chang-Diaz said that being part of this Day of Action was an opportunity to live out King-like values by "praying with our feet." 

During a community conversation to draw meaning from the day, participants reflected on the day's theme of moving from service to justice.  Adults and teens spoke about applying lessons from their work and discussed this quote by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on."  One teen shared her thoughts on why this Day of Action mattered: "[W]hen we all work together to make my school better, I see that my school matters to other people. I see that I matter to other people."

For more information about how you can build relationships with young people at the Blackstone Innovation School and in the South End, please contact Maureen Burns, St. Stephen's Youth Programs' School and Community Organizer at maureen@ststephensbos.org. 

A Volunteer Creates a Hundreds Chart to Support Students at the Blackstone School

Volunteers Paint a Welcome Banner at the 6th Annual MLK Day of Action

Teens Organize for a Fair Economy

The teen organizing team recently collected a total of 149 signatures for the Fair Share amendment petition!

The teen organizers covered Dudley Square; the South End from Lenox Street to Blackstone Square (including the sidewalks and Silver Line routes in between); Mass Ave, Back Bay and Forest Hills T stops; Downtown Crossing and the Boston Common; and the Southwest Corridor from Camden Street to Copley Square. 

They had hundreds of conversations with people about the need for increasing state revenue to improve our K-12 schools, rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, make college affordable, and invest in fast and reliable public transportation. 149 people were happy to sign on to the petition to amend the Massachusetts state constitution in order to create an additional tax of 4% on income that exceeds one million dollars per year. 

Raise Up MA (the organization that brought you the increased minimum wage in 2014) met its signature collection goal, with over 157,000 signatures. The next step is for the petition to go to a Joint Session of the Legislature and be approved by 25 percent of legislators (50 votes) before the end of formal sessions on July 31, 2016. The petition will then need a second approval by 25 percent of legislators in a Joint Session before the end of formal sessions on July 31, 2018 to appear on the ballot on November 6, 2018.

St. Stephen's teens collected 149 signatures for the Raise Up MASsachusetts Fair Share Amendment
Photo Credit: Jon Feinberg, Neighbor to Neighbor (Lynn)

Parent Power: Community Organizing for Education

This fall marked the kickoff of an exciting new project at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs: the Parent Organizing Project! There are mountains of research to show why parent engagement is good for young people- it results in better behavior, higher academic achievement, and enhanced social skills. It also makes it less likely that young people take unhealthy risks like using tobacco, alcohol, and drugs or engaging in risky sexual behavior. Plus, engaged families, communities and schools are part of St. Stephen’s long term plan of providing a circle of care for every young person who walks through our doors.

Over 50 parents were involved in the parent organizing project this fall. Through one-to-one meetings, the parent organizer built relationships with parents and learned about both the aspects of their schools that are awesome, and the aspects that could benefit from more parent involvement. Over 70% of these parents who had one-to-one meetings then attended monthly bilingual Parent Organizing Project meetings, in which parents get to know each other, find shared issues, and work together to solve them. Many of these parents have stepped up as leaders in unbelievable ways- from planning meetings, facilitating activities, translating meetings, and making reminder calls, to bringing a boombox and bachata music!

Not only are parents working together on their shared passion for giving their children the best education possible, but they are also using the connections they build with each other through the meetings. A happy mom remarked, “Because of the meeting, I got my son into baseball on Saturdays. I met another mom who told me about the program!”

This semester has lots of exciting parent organizing opportunities in store. We’ll be tackling issues of safe entrances and exits in school, offering a series of parenting workshops, and setting up parents to volunteer their time in their children’s classrooms. Stay tuned! For more information, contact Ariel (ariel@ststephensbos.org).

Parents introduce themselves at the first Parent Organizing Meeting

A small group of parents talks about safety in schools

Parents take ownership by creating their group norms

Mayor Spotlights SSYP Teen Organizing

In his State Of The City address last night, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh unveiled plans to to renovate Ramsay Park, thanks to the efforts of SSYP's teen organizers. The Park is one of the few green spaces in the Lenox neighborhood, which is home to one of our year-round program sites. Despite its potential to be a family-friendly recreation space, it has long been an epicenter of drug use and violence in the neighborhood. SSYP's teen organizers came together last winter to plan the park's transformation as part of the B-PEACE for Jorge anti-violence initiative. (Read the Boston Herald Article, which includes video footage, here.) 

The teens' efforts spurred the formation of a coalition, Friends of Ramsay Park, that fosters greater collaboration between community organizations. Teen organizers led cleanup days, painted murals, planted bulbs, planned summer evening athletic programming and created family events. Their efforts to make the six acres safer have engaged city and law enforcement officials in dialogues about larger neighborhood issues including gang activity, homelessness, addiction, and mistrust of law enforcement. Noting that he "grew up in his neighborhood's parks" the Mayor said he is committed to improving parks throughout the city.

SSYP's Lenox Neighborhood Organizer, Sarah O'Connor who attended the Mayor's speech along with teen organizers and Director of Youth Programs, Liz Steinhauser commented, "We are thrilled that Ramsay Park is getting the kind of resources and attention from the city that the neighborhood deserves! This has been a community-wide effort that would not have been possible without the hard work and commitment of many individuals and organizations including (but not limited to) Vibrant Boston, Northeastern University, Washington Gateway Main Streets, D-4 of the Boston Police Department, the Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin and the City of Boston Department of Youth Engagement and Employment. Thanks again to everyone for being part of this exciting new chapter in the story of Ramsay Park." 

To find out how to get involved, please contact  Sarah O'Connor.  Read press coverage:

Season-Ending, Record-Breaking Carrot Harvest on Lenox Street

The final carrots of the season were harvested at St. A&M, and thus we put the garden to bed for the winter after a long and productive growing season. Aden says, "The small carrots are my favorite because they are the cutest." Saheed says, "The funny looking ones are like that because they hit a rock and had to keep growing around it." Adriel says, "¡¿Cuándo podemos comer más zanahorias?!" ("When can we eat more carrots?!") And our favorite quote of all: "I tried to plant a garden [at home] but it didn't work because I used Skittles instead of seeds." We can't wait to plant again in the spring!

From Access To Success!

100% of St. Stephen's seniors graduated from high school.

For young people in the neighborhoods we serve, earning a high school diploma is a huge hurdle. Last year, for a second year in a row, all nineteen of our seniors graduated from high school. That was amazing, given the fact that only about a third of their public school peers who enter high school achieve that goal. Their success reflects a lot of hard work on their part and a lot of support from us — one-on-one mentoring, academic enrichment, and college counseling. They all headed off with great plans for this fall.

For some time, we have known that getting into college is only the first hurdle. As we hear from from our alumni, making it through college is very difficult for young people who graduate from Boston Public Schools (BPS). In fact, The Boston Foundation reported that college completion rates among BPS graduates are almost as low as the district’s high school graduation rates.

Some teens experience “summer melt” and drop out before they actually enroll in college. Others become discouraged early on when faced with remedial coursework, overwhelming debt, and lack of support. Sometimes, students who are used to being portrayed as “success stories” in their communities drop out without telling anyone they are experiencing difficulty, embarrassed about not being able to meet the goals they have set for themselves.

The Success Boston College Completion Initiative was created to change the conversation from college access to college success. Based on their model, this year our mentoring program will include college students and we are developing an alumni support program to connect students with other SSYP alums, and campus resources.

If you are interested in being involved in this program please contact Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory. 

Posted by Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory, Massachusetts Promise Fellow, College and Career Program Coordinator

Bunker Hill Visit Kicks Off College Success Initiative

SSYP’s new College Success program will help us do a better job of supporting our graduates as they transition into college. Because twelve of our alumni currently attend Bunker Hill Community College, the school, was a natural choice to be a program partner. Our goal is to create a cohort model, similar to that of the Posse Foundation, where students can utilize each other as resources during the what is typically a very challenging year for Boston Public School graduates. Since many of our alums hope to transfer to four-year schools, we also hope to support them in those efforts.

Anna Rodriguez (an alum in her second year at Tufts University) and I met with Julita Bailey, the Senior Special Programs Coordinator at Bunker Hill. Julita has years of experience working with first-generation students and oversees the ACE mentoring program. ACE is “committed to helping new students make a successful transition to Bunker Hill Community College by focusing on academic achievement, engagement, and cultural competency.”

Our next step is to have Bunker Hill students come to an alumni event at St. Stephen’s, where Julita will help them learn more about campus resources and the transfer process. But that is just the beginning. Soon we will go to Benjamin Franklin Institute to meet with their academic advisors and the three SSYP alums who attend the school.

Posted by: Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory, College and Career Program Coordinator

SSYP Teens Root For Boston Sports Teams

 

OCTOBER 20, 2015 2:50 PM

Over the past week, through a partnership with Mass Mentoring, teens from St. Stephen’s have enjoyed a variety of Boston sports events. This past weekend, soccer fans Aliyah Glover and Nyah Webb traveled to Foxborough see the New England Revolution play the Montreal Impact at Gillette stadium. They went with their mentor, Kali Downer, as well as St. Stephen’s staff Kasey Boston and Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory. It started snowing in the second half, but the group stayed warm with a steady stream of hot chocolate and warm treats. Despite the Revolution losing 1-0, the group loved the experience and was thankful to have had the opportunity to go on the adventure together.

Following the soccer adventure, 5 of the teen organizers, along with St. Stephen’s staff members Sarah O’Connor and Karl Magloire, saw the Boston Celtics play a preseason game against the Brooklyn Nets. The teens celebrated their own fall organizing success together, while also losing their voices cheering on a team they all love. Sarah O’Connor said of the experience, “Dominick lost his voice yelling over the railing for the coach to put all of the players in so they all got a chance to play!”

All of these experiences were made possible through the partnerships between St. Stephen’s, Mass Mentoring, and Celtics Shamrock Foundation. With this partnership intact, St. Stephen’s hopes to continue to send teens and their mentors to games throughout the rest of the year.