Mexican-American Children Want to Make America Great Too

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people". -Donald Trump

It's Christmas in July with children excited to receive books to take home and read.

The political climate right now is a scary one for several reasons, but one of them is the comments made about immigrants from people that don't know them. I know these people. I am the daughter of immigrants and have worked with the immigrant population for the last 8 years in Chelsea. When you hear from a major political candidate negative things about Mexican-Americans with a side of "some, I assume, are good people" you get this distorted look of what an immigrant community is like. Let me tell you who are the people Mexico is "sending". 

An excited young person shows proud mom all of her hard work this summer.

At B-SAFE San Lucas in Chelsea, a majority of the children are either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. The majority of them come from Mexican families. Over the course of the last 8 years, I have been able to know these families, but most of all these children that have grown up in the program. They are the children of parents working multiple jobs to make ends meet. They are the children of parents that use their low wage paying jobs as a reminder to their children of the importance of education. They remind their children constantly of the great sacrifices that they have made. They truly believe in the American Dream that many of us US-born citizens believe is dead. They are open with their children about the reasons they came here, many times to escape great crime warlord cities or to give their children a chance to survive. They teach their children daily about the being grateful for all the opportunities that they are given in this great land of ours and to show their gratitude by serving their communities and paying it forward. This is an ideology that I have only seen in the immigrant community. 

Kids use math to present what a great future looks like for them. 

How this translates to their kids is amazing. I have always seen it this way, but more this summer than ever before. The theme of this summer was to "create our future". And what a bright future we have because of these children. At the closing ceremony they read their essays on the future that they see ahead of them. Many spoke about serving their communities as entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors, veterinarians, and even presidents. They talked about how they want these jobs to make their communities great. There were also essays about what the future of this country would be like in 10 years and they hope to see. While some of the essays were about advancements in technology like flying cars and robots, even those essays had altruistic reasons to them like flying cars because "there would be less pollution and less traffic to make people not be angry when going to work" or robots because "they would walk around and help the homeless people and animals".  Their future was about seeing more farms in communities, people clothing the homeless, caring for the forgotten elderly, volunteering at animal shelters and everyone having a pet because "having a pet makes people happy". These are not words from a politician. This is the future that Mexican-American children want for us. This is how we "make America great again". 

Siblings at our program with the oldest sibling Kennedy volunteering at B-SAFE

I invite anyone that has negative thoughts about immigrants to B-SAFE Chelsea. You will hear from these children some positive ways to "make America great again". You will see love. You will see hopes and dreams that are very much alive. You will see teenagers that grew up in the program spending their summers volunteering in the program that gave so much to them. You will see parents that care for their children. You will see their tired but excited and proud faces as they pick up their children after work. You will see that more than just "some, I assume, are good people". You will see that most actually are good people who want to create a bright future for all. 

By Mauryn Perkins, Site Director at St. Luke's

Mauryn Perkins has been with the B-SAFE program in Chelsea for 8 summers. During the school year she is a 7th grade Spanish teacher at a charter school in Malden. She loves teaching children. She loves organizing things, especially planning and organizing her binder for trips to Disney for her family.

Arts and Action in Ramsay Park

Teen organizers perform spoken word poetry and dance

In the last week of their work in Boston for this B-SAFE summer, the teen community organizers created an event in Ramsay Park that brought together Lenox neighborhood residents (where St. A&M is located), state and city officials, Boston artists, local youth, and various neighborhood organizations for an evening of arts in the park. The community organizers shared a collaborative and original spoken word and dance piece called "We Want To Be Heard" before Anna Meyer and Dancers performed their work "Invisible Imprints of Racism" under the lights of the basketball court. The new mural the organizers painted in the first week of B-SAFE greeted people as they walked into the park. People who had participated in the previous week's peace walk showed up wearing their B-PEACE for Jorge buttons and purple shirts to eat hot dogs and drink lemonade as kids covered the sidewalk in chalk art and stray basketballs and baseballs rolled around their feet. 

Teen organizers work on a mural in Ramsay Park.

What do spoken word, murals and barbecues have to do with building power to transform a neighborhood steeped in a history of street violence and structural violence into a community where peace, justice and equity win? 

We brought people together, around food and art, to share an experience of what could be possible in the Lenox neighborhood. We know its possible because it happens in other parks in other neighborhoods, and because we made it happen in Ramsay, even if just for one night. And the hundreds of people who showed up built the case for each other, for their neighbors, and for the administrators of city and state governance that what happens in Ramsay Park and in the Lenox neighborhood matters. All the people there that night demonstrated clearly with their presence (in the 90 degree heat!) and their attention (even the basketball games paused to watch) and their applause that they are invested in the future of Ramsay Park, and this is how we build the power we need to decide what that future is like. 

City Parks and Rec staff was also at the event to begin collecting input from people about what to prioritize in the upcoming renovation of Ramsay Park. The community process for the redesign will begin in the fall, and Ramsay Park is slated for a major makeover in the coming year. Facilitating resident input for this process- with an eye toward building sustained neighborhood power to hold ground amidst the development swelling around the park- will be a major focus of SSYP's Lenox neighborhood organizing in the fall. 

By Sarah O'Connor, Lenox Community Organizer

Sarah started working with SSYP in the fall of 2014 as a Jewish Organizing Initiative and Network (JOIN) fellow. Sarah works with young people to organize for issues that affect youth across the city of Boston, like funding for public education and teen jobs, and on local neighborhood anti-violence campaigns. Sarah believes that a city that works for the young people in the SSYP family is a city that works well for everyone.

What do hot dogs have to do with educational justice?

I’ve spent a lot of time this summer wondering, “What could grilled hot dogs and lemonade possibly have to do with educational justice?”

Kevin, a dad a St. Mary's, volunteered his outdoor catering company to grill for the BBQ.

This summer, for the first time ever, B-SAFE hosted family BBQs at each of our six sites. As young people made a squirming line to get picked up, parents signed them out, grabbed their hands, and made their way over to tables piled with hot dogs, hamburgers, and tasty sides. Each site had its own feel: at Holy Spirit in Mattapan, the Site Director, Kennell, asked parents what the saying, “It takes a village” meant to them and asked them what they wanted from B-SAFE in the future. At St. Luke’s in Chelsea, the Site Director, Mauryn, used the time to assuage parents’ nerves about sending their middle-schoolers to New Hampshire for a week. At St. Mary’s in Dorchester, a parent leader in our Parent Organizing Group spoke to other parents about her experience, telling them that from the first time she walked in, she was greeted with “a smile and a community.”

One thing was clear: this works. Parents are notoriously busy, and yet when we took a chance on planning a family event, they wanted to be there. They wanted to get to know one another, they wanted to meet with their children’s counselors, and they wanted to chat with the Site Directors. Family engagement is an important part of our work at St. Stephen’s Youth Programs, and if this is our first year doing BBQs, just imagine the possibilities for next year!

Parents receive certificates after completing a series of workshops in partnership with Families First.

It also became clear that the relationships parents build with one another are the real reason they show up. This summer, we offered a second series of Parenting Workshops at our South End site in collaboration with Families First. Parents shared their struggles and successes, laughed together, and problem-solved with one another. While many of the parents there had been part of our Parent Organizing Group during the school year, some had not. When one mom heard the others talking about our group, she turned to me, and said, “Why haven’t I been invited yet? I want to come next year!”

The relationships that come from parent engagement efforts like BBQs and parenting workshops are strengthening our Parent Organizing Group and giving us more power as we tackle bigger questions of educational justice like school safety, parent voice, and fully funded public schools.

A young person appreciates his mom at a family BBQ.

Our final BBQ took place at St. Stephen’s during the last week of program. As I hopped from table to table meeting new parents and hi-fiving kids, I looked over and saw a group of parents that had met through our parent organizing group this year deep in conversation. But it wasn’t just them, they were sitting with parents who had attended the workshops this summer, and parents I’d never even met before. This is how we build community, and community is how we’ll organize for educational justice.

By Ariel Branz, Parent Organizer

Ariel organizes parents at St. Stephen's Youth Programs and is excited about all the fun family engagement planned for the summer. She likes hiking, cats, sweet potatoes, and summertime.

Field Trippin’ Around Boston

Students splash during a fun field trip.

Every week, B-SAFE fills up bus after bus with our enthusiastic, energetic young people to bring them on field trips throughout Boston. This week, we have groups visiting Boston Children’s Museum, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Revere Beach, Boston Public Market, Castle Island, the New England Aquarium, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the Jackson Homestead and Museum. This is in addition to all of our Friday field trips, which are planned by our generous partners.

Why do we bring our students on so many field trips? It’s important to us at B-SAFE that we take advantage of all the learning opportunities around us! In the summer, students are not in school mode, and they benefit from hands-on, active learning that can happen at the museums and outdoor spaces around the city.

Students learn about marine life during a field trip to the New England Aquarium

This year, each one of our sites is visiting the New England Aquarium. At the Aquarium, our young people can see up close exciting water animals like sea turtles, sharks, rays, and penguins. Exploring the aquarium in small groups, they are constantly asking questions about the animals they see. What do they eat? Where do they live? Are they dangerous? Staff at the aquarium offer the expertise that our staff can’t, as well as the opportunity to encounter in person wildlife they would never see in the city. The curiosity never ends when young people are excited about what they are doing, and we make it a priority to give students a lot of those experiences during their summer months.

By Maggie Needham, Academic Coordinator

Maggie Needham is part of the Academic Team for B-SAFE this year, and she is excited to bring interesting, fun programming to our students this summer. Maggie graduated from Saint Louis University in 2015 and spent the past year as a lead counselor and academic coordinator for LEARN students at St. Stephen's. Her favorite thing about St. Stephen's is the relationships she gets to build with our wonderful young people.

8 Steps to Running a Countercultural Program

Students at St. A&M are engaged while working on a group mosaic. 

Here at B-SAFE, we work to make young people feel safe, feel big, and feel connected. Part of that work involves helping kids to stay excited and engaged all day long, whether that be in their academic rotations, on field trips, or in their groups with their lead counselor. As a member of the Academic Team who also serves as a teaching specialist, I have had the unique opportunity to deal with student engagement on two different levels. Not only have I been able think about how best to engage our young people when writing curriculum, but I also get to witness it happening firsthand in the classroom.

Of course, as we all well know, sometimes young people aren’t as engaged as we may have originally planned when writing up our lessons or putting together our supplies for the day. While this can often be frustrating for both us as staff and the young people as students, it are these very moments that can make or break the true impact of the work we do at SSYP.

When students are disengaged in the classroom, many might immediately move to the traditional framework of classroom and behavior management to get them back on track. However, at B-SAFE we avoid these models of managing others, because we firmly believe that the only person’s behavior you can manage is your own. Instead, we follow what we call “The Eight Steps to a Smooth Running Program With Lots of Smiling Kids Learning Lots of Cool Things,” or “The 8 Steps” for short. In this model, we focus on the idea that everyone has the ability to take responsibility for their own actions and behaviors. This means that instead of disciplining or rewarding young people for their actions, we work to redirect them through discussions about the issues behind the disengagement.

We believe that all young people, just like the rest of us, want to have power and feel safe and supported. In practice, this means that we recognize that what might be perceived as a disruptive and disengaged student could actually be a student who doesn’t understand the material and doesn’t know how to express it. We assume the best intentions in all of our young people, and it’s that starting point that makes all the difference in our work.

Ultimately, at B-SAFE we are running a countercultural program that centers the needs of young people rather than having them work to fulfill ours. Through both writing curriculum and working in the classroom, I have seen firsthand that allowing young people to feel safe, big, and connected means using moments of disengagement as opportunities for growth.

y Emily Boyk, Academic Team

Emily Boyk is a rising junior at Wellesley College who is spending her first summer with St. Stephen's on the B-SAFE Academic Team. A student of political science and women's and gender studies, she is passionate about youth empowerment along the lines of race, class, and gender, and is thrilled to be working with SSYP this summer on such issues.

Kids love kale

Kids love kale!

This summer the young people at St. A&M have been learning about gardening.  We have our own garden attached to the program, where young people have watered the plants and tasted the delicious greens.  The young people have eaten kale, chard, lettuce, mint, and more green things that they watched grown from seedlings over the 5 week program.  The young people have also visited two different farms, Green Meadow farm and Farrington farm.  During these field trips the young people surprised the staff by recognizing different plants and sharing what they already knew about farms and gardens. After the trip to Green Meadow farm one of the young people turned to me and said, “Can we make our program a farm?”. 

Kids on tour of Green Meadow Farm

Kids picking peas and smelling wildflowers

Growing plants and eating fresh veggies is a fun way to get the kids to be active outside, but it also serves a larger purpose; it helps kids develop a positive relationship with healthy food.  Through growing healthy food, eating healthy food, and limiting the consumption of high sugar foods and beverages, we encourage children to develop healthy habits that can last a lifetime.  

By Maggie Casey, Site Director at St. A&M

Maggie Casey is the site Director of St. Stephen's LEARN during the summer and for the year-round after school program. She has worked for St. Stephens Youth Programs since summer of 2015. Maggie is originally from Santa Monica, California. She attended Oberlin College and has a degree in Comparative American Studies with a concentration in Education. Maggie can speak Spanish, do math, and play basketball.

Keep ‘Em Fueled, Keep ‘Em Focused!

During the five weeks of B-SAFE 2016 we strive for our students to discover many wonders during field trips all around Massachusetts (and New Hampshire for our YLCers), enjoy the exciting educational activities at all six sites, and engage in a variety of enriching academics. In order to keep our students focused, we must also keep them fueled!

The first step that our students take in preparing for all of the fun-filled days that B-SAFE offers is by properly fueling their bodies with nutritious foods. Our staff and partner churches work hard to provide all of our young people with a sufficient amount of food everyday for both breakfast and lunch.

To ensure that everyone has enough energy, it is important to keep in mind that the most important meal of the day is the first meal of the day: BREAKFAST. Sites cook up a variety of breakfasts ranging from waffles and sausage to boxes of Cheerios and bananas

Unfortunately, when students don’t eat enough food at breakfast and lunch, they are sluggish and don’t have the energy to participate in all of the day's fun and enriching activities. Studies show that students who eat breakfast have higher test scores than students who skip the morning meal. Not only that, but in a recent study published in “Physiology and Behavior” researchers have found that students who enjoyed a low-glycemic breakfast were found to have higher levels of concentration, improved memory, and fewer signs of academic frustration in comparison to students who eat high-glycemic breakfasts! So, it is very important to keep in mind that not only should we continue to provide young people with the meals necessary for them to learn and explore, but also we must continue to pay attention to supplying the nutrients necessary for our students to succeed!

This is Maggie Carey's first summer as an Academic Intern for B-SAFE, and she will be working at Epiphany School in Dorchester this summer. Currently, Maggie is a rising senior studying psychology at College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA). She is the captain of the Division 1 Holy Cross Women's Soccer program, so she is very excited to be teaching/overseeing the Health and Wellness Curriculum this summer!

B-SAFE is Community

Leads, once CITs, enjoy breakfast before starting the day at Epiphany 2014.

Having been a part of St. Stephen’s Youth Programs since the age of 17, I can confidently say that community is the best way to describe this program. I started off as a Counselor in Training, moved on to be a Lead Counselor, and this summer I have the pleasure of being a first year Site Director. Throughout the years I have formed lifelong friendships and created amazing memories. I have had the opportunity of going on Mission Trips to another state and even another country.  I have watched youth grow from being in the youngest group to now being JCITs, from being participants to being Site Assistants, from being teens to being Site Directors.

Didier stops by to say hi and volunteers to read with youngest group during DEAR time. 

This year I experienced the power of unity that is encompassed within the walls of St. Stephen’s. In previous years I have worked for B-SAFE at their Epiphany location, this year is my first time working at St. Stephen’s. At any given moment people are walking into the building seeking help or to simply say hi. Since being here in September I have seen numerous faces, some more than others. What I love about this program is that even when you move on from this program you can always rest assured knowing that St. Stephen’s will always welcome you with open doors. Individuals who have been part of our program find comfort in knowing that there is always a friendly and familiar face when they walk through our front door. Previous teens, now young adults, come in seek help with their college work and/or prep, sometimes they simply stop by because they would rather be here than at home. 

By Sandy Quispe, St. Stephen's LEARN Site Director

Sandy, born in Peru, has lived in Dorchester since the age of 5. She attended Boston Arts Academy where, during a job fair, she came across St. Stephens Youth Programs. She worked as a teen for an academic year and two summers before taking on the role of lead counselor for St. Stephen's summer enrichment program, B-SAFE. She attained her bachelor's in psychology from University of Massachusetts Amherst. Working with children has always been one of her passions. She loves to see how children grow and develop from early childhood to adolescence.

The Evolution of College Access: How We are Supporting Teens for Long-Term Success

Students engage in interview practice.

For the past twenty years, the college access programs all over Boston have focused their energy primarily on getting students into college. Energy and resources have been dedicated towards helping low-income and first generation students overcome the variety of obstacles that exist during the college admissions process. However, as the effectiveness of these programs increased, a new problem presented itself that had a dramatic effect on students all over the city; college completion. While students were getting into college at increasing rates, they were also dropping out of college without any degree and amassing tremendous debt. In many ways, students were worse off then they were before going.

In fact, “A 2008 study by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies (CLMS) and the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC) found that only 35.5 percent of the BPS graduates from the Class of 2000 who had enrolled in college had completed college seven years later.” Even worse is that fact that “When the district’s exam school students were excluded, the number of BPS graduates who had enrolled in college and had completed college within seven years fell to 24 percent (Sum, A. et al., 2008).”

CITs participate in a college prep workshop focusing on planning the future.  

St. Stephen’s has been witnessing this firsthand, having watched several alumni over the years drop out of college saddled with debt because of a missed payment, a failed class, or a lack of support from the institution of higher education. The new vision of the College and Career Program at St. Stephen’s is to empower students to think through their future goals, and support their development of a post-high school plan. By changing the narrative that 4 year college is the only measure of success, we are able to help match students with a post-high school plan that best fits their personal goals, to help ensure long term success.

Teens, Specialists, Site Assistants and Site Directors participate in a resume workshop.

Our goal is to not only support students through the college application process, but also to partner with schools like Bunker Hill, Wheelock, Northeastern, Pine Manor, Benjamin Franklin, and many more, to help ensure that students are supported throughout their entire post-high school experience. In addition, St. Stephen’s is hoping to continue to increase the ways in which we support our alumni through academic tutoring, mentoring, college visits, and much more. It is imperative that St. Stephen’s continue to provide the resources necessary in order to help our alumni overcome the vast number of obstacles that higher educations presents, in order to ensure that they are on a path towards successful adulthood. If you are interested in getting more involved in this program, you can e-mail Jeremy at Jeremy@ststephensbos.org.

By Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory, College and Career Program Coordinator

Jeremy graduated from Colorado College with a Degree in Political Science and Urban Studies in 2012. He comes to St. Stephen's through the Massachusetts Promise Fellowship program, an AmeriCorps program that focused fulfilling the needs of our youth by providing: a caring adult, a safe place, a healthy start, a marketable skill, and an opportunity to give back. Jeremy is passionate about increasing low-income students' access to higher education and helping students successfully complete their post-highschool plans. He currently serves as the College and Career Program Coordinator during the school year, and a Teen Staff Coordinator over the summer. 

#learningforall

Teaching specialists worked with young people to process this week's events.

B-SAFE’s motto “Feel Safe, Feel Big, Feel Connected”, permeates every aspect of the program including Academics. Teaching specialists are committed to providing a safe space for young people to take academic risks and explore new things. Teaching specialists also ensure that all young people feel big by accomplishing small assignments that are the skeleton to a big final project that connects them to their current communities and the future they would like to create.

These amazing teaching specialists came together on Friday, July 8th to discuss the work they are doing with young people and to adjust their teaching to meet the needs of the individuals they are working with. The timing of this workshop added a layer of understanding for why the work we are doing is so important. The week was the week of the murder of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and 5 Dallas police officers. As the national news cycled through whose lives matter we discussed that our youth’s lives matter and the work that we do with them might not shield them from the broader atrocities of the world but it can empower them to navigate the social issues that entrap our nation. “We have the opportunity to create the future and decide what that’s like.” We hope to empower them to create the future where we can all “Feel Safe, Feel Big, and Feel Connected.”

Teaching specialists during a mindfulness activity reflecting on recent events during workshop.

By Kemarah Sika, Director of Academic Programs

Kemarah rejoined the St. Stephen’s community as the Director of Academic Programs in 2016. In the past, she served as a member of the B-SAFE team in a variety of capacities including Teaching Specialist, Site Director, and parent of a participant. Most recently, she was the Director of Library & Media Service and the Learning Experience Designer at the Cambridge School of Weston, a 9-12 progressive education school. She has worked in K-12 education since 2001 in many roles including libraries, technology integration, after-school programming, and curriculum development.  Kemarah is delighted to bring her experience to St. Stephen’s Youth Programs in a full time capacity and to have the opportunity to work in her community to serve the youth of Boston.

Through “The Well” Window

Since I started working at SSYP about four months ago, I’ve been walking around Lower Roxbury with my camera. I like to take pictures of hidden, or surprising places of beauty--and I’ve found them: a “meadow” of tall-growing chickory and Queen Ann’s lace behind a chain link fence, a grand oak tree in the middle of a public playing field, a humble  bit of “stained glass” made up of stick-on translucent plastic on a cellar window, a Pentecost origami dove mobile in the sanctuary of St. Augustine and St. Martin.

Yesterday, I stood in the kitchen, off “The Well” at St. Augustine and St. Martin, warming up my lunch. “The Well” acts as a gathering place for church members, but also serves as a quiet place for SSYP’s young people to meet with volunteers and work on reading, or gather in small groups with teen leaders.

DEAR time at St. Augustine and St. Martin

The wall that separated me from the young people is really a kitchen pass-through but it provided a kind of frame to look in on them and see Day 1. Here’s the picture that I saw: two teen counselors, on the brink of adulthood, standing in front of the younger kids, and acting as leaders. I sensed that the teens were a bit nervous, but at the same time, the training they’ve received over the past few months has made them confident. When they asked the younger kids to “DEAR” i.e. “Drop Everything And Read” they were firm, but they also made it sound exciting. The kids were falling over each other to grab a book, which they were excitedly showing to their friends: comparing titles, and saying things like “I’ve read that one! That’s good!” The teens were trying to both encourage the kids, while at the same time exert crowd control: not an easy job!

I ran back to get my camera but then I realized that I don’t need it. Scenes like this are going to be unfolding here all summer and I’ll be here to catch them. I am looking forward to seeing “pictures” of young people “creating the future” for both themselves and others all summer and beyond. I think they will surprise us (and themselves) with what they can do.

By Kate Hornstein, Director of Development and Communications

Kate Hornstein is Director of Development and Communications at St. Stephen's Youth Programs. She enjoys walking around in Boston neighborhoods with her pug, Yodel, taking photos.

Growing Together at B-SAFE

What is this summer's theme? Is it "We are Awesome," or "We Hold the World in our Hands," or "We create the future?"  This is my sixth summer with the B-SAFE program.  They all blurred together after a while.  While things may be blurry, being here for that amount of time has allowed me to see growth.  And by growth, I don’t just mean seeing participants come back year after year a couple inches taller, and with different voices. Youth that were once part of our LEARN program are now participating as YLC.  I mean I have seen growth in attitudes, growth in maturity, and growth in awareness.  

Even I have grown at B-SAFE. I started off as a LEAD for three years at St. A&M. And from there, I grew into a Site Director for Epiphany YLC.  That’s the cool thing about B-SAFE; everyone has the opportunity to grow.  This year my staff is made up of three young women who all started off as CITs (Teen Staff) here at Epiphany.  I met Nuribis, Erondina, and Chaia in the summer of 2014. They were juniors in high school and I was a first-year site director. We were all trying to find our place within YLC, and learn how 10 through 13 year olds interact with the world.

Together, we learned how to eat in 15 minutes or less, how to dance and nae-nae, what it means to be on “fleek”, and how to “ force it”.  After three summers together, we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We know how to push each other and when to offer each other a break. It has been an honor to watch them transform from awkward counselors in training who didn’t know how to mop the floor to strong empowered women who can take charge of a group of 20 middle schoolers.

We have lived the themes. They are awesome, they will create the future, and it is in their hands to make a better world.  

Just look how much we have grown.

By Diana "D" Colón, Epiphany YLC Site Director

Born and raised in Puerto Rico. I came to Boston 9 years ago for a job and been here ever since. I spend my time teaching small children how to read and write in both English and Spanish. As well as teaching them some counting, addition and subtraction. I have spent my last 5 summers with St. Stephen’s Youth Programs. My favorite number is 3 or 11. I like my coffee strong and sweet. And I got a soft spot for animals. I’m a firm believer that a smile can open doors, and nothing is impossible con un poco de paciencia y fe.

Employing Teens Aplenty

JCITs arriving for their first day at Thompson Island

The streets of Boston are bombarded with purple-shirt-wearing teenagers as 160 of them make their way to work. Our highest youth employment numbers ever come through our partnerships with the Department of Youth Employment and Engagement, ABCD, the Attorney General's Office, the Chelsea Collaborative, and St. Stephen's Youth Programs funding. 

Not only do the 160 teens participate in a fun, active and safe place to work but are also provided with 20+ hours of professional development and job training. This week, the teens learned about the effects of trauma on young people and the deep need to use the 8-Steps, the B-SAFE way of behavioral management, in order for children to feel safe, big and connected. In the training portion of the week the teens had to opportunity to learn about the Cycle of Socialization and reflect on their self identity.   

ebecca Jackson training the teen group at Church of the Holy Spirit.

By Kasey Boston, Director of Youth Employment and Leadership.

Kasey is in her 4th summer with B-SAFE and joined our team after completing her masters degree in International Education Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Kasey works with St. Stephen's Youth Programs year round and focuses on building professional development and life skills with teens. Kasey works to create service-learning opportunities for all young people and hopes to begin traveling abroad with teens this year.  

Water, Not Juice! The B-SAFE Way

With only 5 weeks of program, we have so many things to do! From field trips to general day play, learning, creating and exploring, we all need to make sure we stay hydrated and keep cool! Last Wednesday was 90 degrees outside! B-SAFE programs went on field trips and it was hot out. Everyone had so much fun exploring, learning and doing it all the B-SAFE way. None of the field trips could have been successful without everyone making sure to load up on water!

It’s very important to be sure we (staff and children in the program) are all drinking water, not juice, because our bodies literally depend on it!  With all the easily-available energy beverages and other sugar-packed beverages it can be so hard to ONLY want to drink water. But the sugar found in these drinks are not good for our bodies and are packed with tons of calories. Water consumption is essential to having a productive and safe summer. To the right you will find a diagram that shows just how important WATER is for the body and how it makes everything work correctly. 

We lose water in so many ways; going to the bathroom, sweating and even breathing! Water is lost much faster in the summer because it’s of how hot it is. If we do not replace the water we are losing with more water (not juice) we can become dehydrated.

Signs of dehydration include:

• Dark urine color
• Extreme thirst
• Headache
• Confusion

We at BSAFE always provide water for students and staff because we understand how important drinking water is! Let’s all have a great summer and make sure we are actively drinking water and not juice. 

Traciana is a Curry College alumni, Class of 2011, who majored in communications. This is her first summer with B-SAFE as a Teen Staff coordinator and definitely not the last! During the school year she works as a one-to-one para at an Elementary school in Brookline. Her favorite color is yellow. She has 3 brothers and 3 sisters.

Middle School State of Mind

I always think of the middle school years as a permanent roller coaster ride. This ride is very exclusive- you are lucky to get on it! I’m happy to say I’m one of those lucky people and so far it has been awesome!

YLC Middle School Participants

Our middle school program enrolls rising 5th graders to rising 8th graders. As you can imagine, the difference between 10-year-olds and 13-year-olds is sometimes huge! In less than five minutes you can go from a student needing something from you to a student that wants you to go far far far away. Then there are the wonderful moments when you sit in on one of their academic rotations and you hear them having a deep and smart conversation about the things that worry them when they think about their communities. And right when you hear them, you realize that even though they don’t act like they care about anything else other than their friends and cellphones, they in fact are taking it all in and processing it quietly in their heads.

Our young people are worried about gun violence and what it would mean if Donald Trump becomes the next president. They worry about schools not having enough money to give them the education they deserve and whether or not the police are here to protect them. As I think of Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and all the names and stories that don’t make the news, I realize how valuable the job we are doing with SSYP is. From the LEARN program through the YLC and Teen programs to our Community Organizers, we are supporting, teaching, mentoring, and guiding our participants to be part of the change. As hard as it seems, together we can and must improve our communities and provide young people with the safe environments they deserve to live healthy meaningful long lives.

A visual representation of the things middle school students in our program worry about. Words that were mentioned more are bigger.

By Mayra Gende, St. Stephen’s YLC Site Director

My name is Mayra Gende. I moved to the US in 2001 and joined the SSYP family in 2013. I'm passionate about educational equity and I'm committed to showing our youth a world where they can question, change, and achieve anything they want. In my free time, I enjoy gardening, cooking, and pottery-making.

Wake Up and Create the Future!

Creating the future with education!

The theme at St. Stephen’s this summer is “creating the future.” It comes from a quote by the brilliant and multi-talented Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in space.

As someone working with children and teens at St. Stephen’s this summer, the idea of “creating the future” is meaningful to me. In our world, so many factors conspire to destroy futures, rather than create them. Patterns of racism, sexism, poverty, illness, oppression, etc. poison futures unevenly, impacting children from marginalized groups most severely. Inexcusably, our society often supports--both explicitly and tacitly--this foreclosing of futures. We must be vigilant, constantly critiquing the ways in which our society fails to support expansive possibility and full flourishing in every child’s future.

Mae Jemison was vigilant. She recognized and disavowed the constricting messages that society was telling her: that women cannot be scientists, that Black people should not be ambitious, and that young people cannot work hard. Even as society told her that “all futures matter,” it covertly signaled to her that her future as a Black woman held little promise.

Jemison took these damaging messages and used them to make her own future even more incredible. She saw the sexist and racist expectations of her teachers and peers as a challenge to prove people wrong. Today, she continues to live an incredible life that inspires others because of the way she reacts to society’s message of “limits,” proving that the real limits are in society’s limited imagination.

Young people ready to learn

Oftentimes, the young people at St. Stephen’s are likewise confronted with the message of “limits:” that the circumstances of race, class, poverty, and zipcode have preordained a limited future. The beautiful thing about working with young people, though, is that their imaginations refuse to be downgraded. They intuitively know that they have the power to “create the future,” one where they view society’s low expectations not as a barrier, but as fuel to propel them to unexpected heights.

Catchin’ Bugs (not the boy discussed in the post)

Yesterday, on the way to a field trip at the Boston Nature Center, I asked some of the kids about the future they hoped to create. I heard cries of “doctor” and “police officer,” but the answer that caught my ear was “butterfly doctor.” This gentle response came from one of the kids (not pictured) who is generally regarded as rambunctious and challenging. Already, society is spinning stories about his limited future: “he’s a troublemaker, he’s a wanderer, he’s unintelligent”... in defiance of these tales, the young boy talked about how much he loved bugs, worms, and dragonflies. He wanted to help butterflies that had been hurt! The innocent trust that a career of such delicacy and care even existed, much less awaited this boy in particular, pushed back on all my limited expectations. While I don’t want to downplay his genuine behavioral difficulties, it struck me that I had allowed society’s story of “limitations” to foreclose this boy’s future in my mind’s eye. Only when I invited him to create the future did I wake up to his authentic sense of possibility and compassion. May all of us who work with young people likewise invite them to create futures of hope, peace, and possibility. And let us wake up and join them when they actually do so.

By Cooper McCullough, Teen Staff Coordinator

Cooper is a recent graduate of Boston College’s Schools of Social Work and Theology & Ministry. He enjoys working with teens and children to increase resilience and build prosocial skills. Fun fact: he loves to waterski and spend his day on a lake with his family.

What’s Going Right When Everything is Going Wrong

As a member of the Academic Team here at St. Stephens, I’ve spent the past month painstakingly planning out every moment of our young people’s summer at B-SAFE. From fun at home days, to full-day field trips, to every second of an academic rotation, we have planned out the most idealistic, smooth running program that’s ever existed. Unfortunately, life happens. Academic rotations don’t stay on schedule because the post-lunch sugar rush is causing a surge of talking, our young people are exhausted in art class from a high energy health class, and sometimes just the heat in the middle of July is enough to derail a great day.

But here’s the thing about derailed lessons: they’re ultimately more engaging for our young people, and more educational for our teaching specialists. When lessons don’t adhere to the timeline, more often than not it’s because one of our young people has asked a question that leads us down a different path and allows our specialists to teach a deeper understanding of a subject that the class has expressed a genuine interest in.

My first experience teaching on the fly came with the presence of baby birds in the courtyard at St. Stephens. Instead of arts and crafts, the young people were more interested in figuring out why one of the babies was flying around while the other was sitting huddled in a corner. The day turned into a lesson on nature, animal care, health, and an eventual trip to the emergency vet. So while those paintings still sit unfinished, our young people now hold knowledge on subjects that would have been hard to teach in a classic classroom setting.

Regardless of how hard we try to preemptively perfect a classroom, sometimes the best thing to do is allow something to go wrong. 

By Jean Bellamy, PICS Academic Coordinator

Jean Bellamy is originally from Hillsborough, North Carolina, where she grew up surrounded by books and animals. She is a Psychology major at Princeton University interested in studying developmental and educational psychology with eventual hopes of becoming a teacher. In her free time, Jean loves to ride horses, read, and drink coffee at a furious pace!

B-SAFE 2016 Blasts Off!

Today, the B-SAFE Program launches into our seventeenth summer!  

Staff in purple T-shirts are welcoming hundreds of smiling, excited, and slightly nervous young people to our 11 programs in six neighborhoods across Boston and Chelsea (South End, Lower Roxbury, Uphams Corner, Codman Square, Mattapan, and Chelsea).

A recent New York Times op-ed by KJ Dell'Antonia described the importance of high-quality, affordable summer programs that include an academic component. In the absence of summer opportunities such this--programs like B-SAFE--the "lack of affordable child care and the achievement gap collide for lower income families." Young people in the neighborhoods B-SAFE serves can lose, on average, more than two months of reading skills over the summer and studies indicate that they never make this up. Dell'Antonia notes that this gap keeps getting wider, and by the end of 5th grade, young people from lower-income areas are nearly three years behind their higher income peers in academic skills.

But it does not have to be this way! B-SAFE offers solutions. Research shows that the summer slide accounts for about half of this disparity in academic achievement, which means that young people in B-SAFE will stay on track for their reading and writing skills. Plus they find friends who are fun and a community of adults who care about and love them. Meanwhile, our team of teen organizers are meeting with public officials to create longer term solutions for the economic and educational issues in our cities. 

This summer, B-SAFE's theme is "Create the Future," taken from a quote of Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to travel in space. Together, we will be building communities where EVERYONE feels safe, feels big, and feels connected. Together, we will be fostering a life-long love of learning that is evaluated not by standardized tests but rather by the quality of final projects and the enthusiastic engagement of students. Together, we will be creating experiences that enact a future with more love, more justice, more health, and (perhaps most importantly) more smiles!  

We are so excited that you are part of this solution and the B-SAFE community!

Now, BLAST OFF to a future of fun! 

By Liz Steinhauser, Director of Youth Programs

Liz Steinhauser joined St. Stephen's staff as the Director of Youth Programs in August 2003, bringing over 30 years of professional training and experience as a youth worker and community organizer to the position. Liberation theology developed her commitment to social justice; Girl Scouts built her arts and crafts skills and her repertoire of goofy songs. She is a graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Divinity School and lives in Roslindale with her modern family, including her eleven-year-old son, Heschel, who is studying to be an actor.

Reach Beyond 2016: Celebrating Our Seniors' Success

By Jen Cusack, Director of Leadership Giving

Last Thursday night at the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts, St. Stephen's Youth Programs brought over 130 people together to celebrate our 31 seniors on their successful high school graduation. We enjoyed a night of tasty food, getting to know each other, listening, and learning with our fantastic St. Stephen's seniors! 

Featured speakers included State Representative Byron Rushing; Student Speakers Tahnaree Evans and Alex Maizonett; Mentor Blake Sims; Alumni Speaker Pedro Cardoso; and SSYP Staff Tim Crellin, Liz Steinhauser, Kasey Boston and Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory. The event included a gallery of gorgeous senior portraits taken by former SSYP staffer Meg McDermott and featured on our Facebook page.

Many thanks to our generous sponsors, including our Lead Sponsor, the Plymouth Rock Foundation, and the following local business donors: El Centro Mexican Restaurant, Foodie's Market, Haley House, IBA Center for the Arts, Mana Escondido Cafe, Mela Modern Indian Cusine, Olympia Flowers, and Stephi's on Tremont.

We hope you'll plan to join us for next year's Reach Beyond in May 2017!

If you'd like to learn more, sponsor Reach Beyond 2017, or be a mentor to one of our teens, please contact Jeremy Kazanjian-Amory at jeremy@ststephensbos.org.

Field Trips and Fun During April Vacation

During April Break, we filled the week with field trips and fun! We took a well-earned break from academics and schoolwork to find out what we could learn from exploring some new places in the Boston area.

On Tuesday, we took a school bus out to Higham to discover World’s End, a so close to the ocean, we hiked, played by the water, and had a picnic lunch.

Wednesday took us up to Lincoln, Mass., to our good friends at Farrington Farm. Students planted seeds, built terrariums, painted with mud, and played fun games in the fields. Plus, the staff there took us all on a hike through the woods to learn about what nature in Massachusetts can hold in the spring.

Our last day of April Break was all about science, so we took the T to the Museum of Science. We found the best parts of the museum: the Lightning Show, the Discovery Center, Science in the Park, and much more. We ended the week with lots and lots of popsicles.

By Maggie Needham, Academic Coordinator and Lead Counselor

Students enjoy lunch in the sun.

Learning about nature is fun at Farrington Farm!

Can YOU hold the whole world in your hands?