Moving Forward: Report on Youth Services

Report on Youth Services

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Participants in LCCAA’s Youth Services Program gathered June 22, 2019, to help dedicate the Ronald J. Nabakowski Youth Center. Also present were several members of the Nabakowski family along with LCCAA board members, Jon Veard from United Properties, staff and local public officials.

LCCAA provides hands-on learning opportunities designed to develop important life skills in our youth participants. In addition to developing technical abilities and soft skills such as relationship building, the strong work ethic they cultivate enables them to succeed.

The Ronald J. Nabakowski Youth Center, dedicated in June 2019, allows LCCAA to provide a fun, engaging environment where youth are mentored and supported by adults committed to their success.

In addition to being ready to succeed in the work force, our youth program results in: ᐳᐳ

Reduction in risky behaviors;

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Higher grades and expectations to go to college;

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Improved social and emotional outcomes;

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Greater likelihood of contributing to their communities;

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Less depression;

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Higher rates of successful transition into adulthood.

Ron Nabakowski served Lorain County in many ways, including as President of LCCAA’s Board of Directors.

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To Our Supporters & Friends Lorain County Community Action Agency’s Youth Services Program has grown and evolved into something truly special and successful through the unique talents of mission-focused people.

We began with an emphasis on the arts, but the workforce development background of our Planning and Community Services Director Frank Prihoda took the program in a different direction. Frank’s passion was to give youth opportunities to learn practical skills that would prepare them for work and life.

Then, in 2018, the agency took a leap and hired a dedicated Youth Coordinator, Bobby Taylor. Bobby’s deep ties to service and faith-based organizations took the program to another level with an emphasis on community service and mentoring.

Bobby’s extensive experience with youth programming has created a passion for showing youth how much value they have in our community.

Jackie Boehnlein

My part in building the youth program centered around creating a unique space where youth could learn, contribute, grow, discover, have fun and build affirming relationships.

Today, the Ronald J. Nabakowski Youth Center includes the fully-functional LCCAA Bike Shop, operated by our youth, as well as dedicated learning space. The ribbon cutting event was a truly marvelous day.

Frank Prihoda

Throughout this report, you will see how our program is helping our young adults find the best in themselves even as they continually give back to the community. The smiling faces say it all.

Our program has had strong community support from the very beginning. Please accept my gratitude for every act of kindness, donation, contribution, time given, and knowledge shared. We continue to grow the program and ask for your continued support.

In Service, Bobby Taylor

Jackie Boehnlein, President and CEO 3

Graduates Earn More Five young people who were part of the Lorain County community’s Class of 2020 have worked in our program in the last few years.

“I’m so proud of all our youth,” said Coordinator Bobby Taylor. “We know graduating from high school means much greater earnings potential for them. They will go on to great things.”

Congratulations go to Angel Alvarez, Hannah Banks, Isaias DeJesus, Darryl Hill and Nia Noble.

Angel, Isaias and Darryl all graduated from Lorain High School. Angel is currently working at Wal-Mart and plans to be a police officer.

Isaias is currently working at Ground Effects in Westlake while saving money to buy a car. Darryl is still finalizing his plans.

Hannah graduated from Steele High School in Amherst and is headed to Alabama State University to major in criminal justice. She plans to become an FBI agent.

Nia graduated from Elyria High School and plans to enlist in the U.S. Air Force.

Both Hannah and Nia were among the 11 debutantes presented at the Third Annual Vision of Beauty Cotillion sponsored by the Lorain County Section of National Council Negro Women Inc. this spring.

With a High School diploma, workers in the United States earn a higher weekly income than dropouts, and their lifetime earnings are significantly greater. High school graduates are also less likely to be unemployed. https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2018/data-on-display/education-pays.htm

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Six Spokes of Positive Youth Development Character Character is taking responsibility; a sense of independence and individuality; and connection to principles and values.

Confidence Building confidence in youth can help prevent students from dropping out of school; ensure kids maintain their love for learning; and help them achieve their dreams and goals by staying in school.

Competence

Contribution

Competence is knowing how to handle situations effectively.

Children and youth build competence by mastering tasks and facing challenges.

Contribution is defined as habitually participating and leading at school, in peer groups, and as a member of a community.

Caring & Compassion

Connection Connection is defined as having positive bonds with people and institutions that are reflected in exchanges. It is most often described as a feeling of being part of something important.

Caring and Compassion are defined as having a sense of sympathy and empathy for others.

Caring and compassion are built over time.

Young people possess great empathy and sympathy for others and have the capacity to grow in this area as they gain life experiences.

Source: Based on the work of Pittman and Irby. http://actforyouth.net/youth_development/development/outcomes.cfm

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Community Service LCCAA’s Youth Services Program is designed to help participants gain skills that translate to their future jobs. The cornerstone of the work experience the youth gain is in community service.

Working with other area non-profit organizations, our youth serve meals, distribute food, tend community gardens, set up and staff community festivals and events, clean up blighted or neglected areas and much, much more.

Through it all, they learn to work with each other and with people of all ages from a variety of backgrounds. They learn the importance of being on time, staying on task and finishing what they start. They learn that they can play a critical role in their community and that their efforts make a difference.

Company & College Tours Visiting employers around Lorain County and colleges throughout our region show youth participants options they may not have considered for themselves. Our youth have learned about careers from manufacturing to aviation.

Guest speakers also visit the Nabakowski Youth Center to discuss how to identify their unique skills and build them into a resume. They learn the educational requirements for various careers and how to attain them. And, they discover a range of possibilities.

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Mentoring Sometimes you just need to know you’re not alone. In partnership with OhioMeansJobs Lorain County, LCCAA offers youth both individual and group mentoring.

Discussions can range across almost any topic and were so important to all participants that they were continued online during the COVID-19 crisis.

In the past year, mentoring has been enhanced with the addition of AmeriCorps member Charnelle Cannon who came to us through Horizon Education Centers. Prior to joining AmeriCorps and LCCAA, Charnelle worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher for Lorain County while also juggling a toddler and classes at the Firelands branch campus of Bowling Green State University in Sandusky. She plans to become a clinical psychologist.

LCCAA and Horizon are now actively recruiting our next AmeriCorps member for another one-year term.

Care Cupboard

After working with local food pantries, our youth wanted to create one of their own. On March 17, 2018, the Care Cupboard was born. In partnership with Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Ohio, the Care Cupboard offers care packages of non-perishable food and personal care items once a month in downtown Lorain.

Additional grants and donations from retailers, foundations and others have allowed the Care Cupboard to provide specialty items for spring cleaning, welcoming new babies and at Christmas. In 2019, a total of 1,712 individuals were served. That translates to 15,408 meals. Service was interrupted by the COVID-19 crisis but will resume soon.

Collaboration with Schools

LCCAA leveraged contacts throughout the county to create Senior Service Day at Lorain High School in 2017.

More than 200 high school seniors disperse to a variety of non-profits to clean, sort, count, serve and more.

The popular event sends seniors to destinations varying from soup kitchens to animal rescues. More than 50 work sites participate each year.

The LCCAA Bike Shop also hosted sessions of Girls in Gear, a program aimed at girls ages 9-13.

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Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act LCCAA partners with OhioMeansJobs Lorain County to find the young men and women in the Youth Services Program. Anyone in the county ages 16 to 24 can apply to be a part of the program. Funds from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) provide the salaries for our youth.

In 2019, 15 youth were assigned to LCCAA by OMJLC, 10 completed more than 30 percent of their maximum allocated hours, five completed at least 80 percent of their maximum allocated hours. Most worked around schools, sports and other jobs.

Angel Alvarez at his job at Wal-Mart

Purpose of WIOA The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) was signed into law on July 22, 2014. WIOA is designed to help job seekers access employment, education, training, and support services to succeed in the labor market and to match employers with the skilled workers they need to compete in the global economy.

Renewed Focus on Youth The 2014 law revamped the Workforce Development Program last enacted in 1998 and created a wider array of services for youth.

Youth, especially out-of-school and at-risk youth, are connected through job centers to education and jobs; particularly work experience, career guidance, financial literacy education, and entrepreneurial skills training.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/wioa

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LCCAA Bike Shop - A Live Learning Lab

Kamil Ortiz (left) and Jonathan Oyola mount a recently repaired bike to a display stand in preparation for the dedication of the Ronald Nabakowski Youth Center in June 2019.

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LCCAA has been fortunate to find an expert partner in Ed Stewart of the Elyria Bicycle Education Center. Ed trains each of our youth in how to repair bicycles first by demonstrating and then by giving them the tools and letting them redo the repairs themselves. He calls it ‘reverse streaming.’ We call it effective.

After a career operating an advertising business, the Elyria native started the Elyria Bicycle Education Center as a cooperative for biking enthusiasts.

In the process, Ed discovered a number of area residents who rely on their bicycle as their primary means of transportation. That knowledge gave his work a new dimension. Passing on the skill of caring for a bicycle is now a mission to create independence - one he shares without hesitation.

To get the LCCAA Bike Shop up and running, Ed provided 113 hours of instruction - sometimes to as many as 10 youth at once. He also handles quality control for the Bike Shop and his standards are so ingrained a repair isn’t done until “Ed says it’s done.”

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1000+ hours of training provided

Since opening in August 2019, the LCCAA Bike Shop has generated about $5,000 in revenue repairing and selling bikes and parts.

Bike sales jumped during the spring months of 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. All sales at this point were done by appointment.

We expect even more robust sales in the coming months when we are able to be open regular hours.

Bike sales by month since opening.

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Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. Mar. April May June

Each bike purchased at the LCCAA Bike Shop comes with four free gifts so the rider is safe and comfortable. Thanks to our many partners and supporters, we provide a helmet, bike lock, lights and a repair kit with every bike.

Bobby’s Favorite Moment: Meeting Doug Vinson Many visitors to the LCCAA Bike Shop, operated by our youth program, rely on their bicycles as their only transportation.

Vinson called it a “life saver.”

Taylor provided Vinson with a free reflective vest, donated by Lorain County Public Health.

Both men rely on their bicycles as their primary mode of transportation.

“I never really thought about the impact of the bike shop until that moment,” Taylor said. “It Doug Vinson visited the shop on was one of the most rewarding a winter Saturday and recounted days that I experienced.” just how dangerous that reliance Other early customers also can be. included Robert Fye who “Mr. Vinson told us he had been brought his bike in for brake hit by a car twice while riding repair before the shop was fully his bicycle,” said Youth Services open. Franco Diaz accidentally Coordinator Bobby Taylor. “He removed the valve stem on one was so afraid of being hit again, of his bike’s tires while using a he started riding against traffic, pump at the public library. He which earned him a citation and also brought his bike to us for a trip to court.” repairs.

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Youth Services is a program under LCCAA’s CSBG Grant, which is the program’s primary source of funding. As the revenue and in-kind figures show for the period Aug. 1, 2019 to June 15, 2020, growing our program’s numerous funding streams is our next challenge.

What is CSBG? The Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) is one of the main funding sources for LCCAA and for Community Action Agencies throughout the country.

CSBG provides federal funds to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty in communities.

The nature of the block grant allows flexibility to address local issues.

Every three years, LCCAA conducts a Community Needs Assessment, complete with public meetings, to determine the areas of greatest need in Lorain County.

Programming decisions are made based on that assessment.

Revenues and In-Kind Bike Sales & Service CSBG Grant Fund-raising & Local Giving Mentoring Fees Other Grants Total Revenue In-Kind Bike Inventory (Donations) In-Kind Bike Shop Labor (WIOA) In-Kind Community Service Hours In-Kind Non-Bike Donations In-Kind Senior Service Day Hours Total Revenue and In-Kind

Expenses by Category Initial Startup Program Staff Salary & Fringe Space Costs (Rent, Utilities, etc.)

Training Expense Program Support (Other) Total Expenses

Thank you to our local partners! ᐳᐳ ᐳᐳ ᐳᐳ ᐳᐳ ᐳᐳ ᐳᐳ

Elyria Bicycle Education Center Second Harvest Food Bank OhioMeansJobs Lorain County AmeriCorps/Horizon Education Centers Lorain County Public Health Lorain County Metro Parks

$5,162 $127,173 $451 $1,459 $5,000 $139,245 $8,303 $25,870 $27,800 $2,440 $7,200 $205,858

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Lorain County Public Library City of Lorain El Centro de Servicios Sociales Our F.A.M.I.L.Y. United Properties

$8,201 $51,876 $62,596 $4,500 $12,072 $139,245

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In serving the community, participants in the Youth Services Program provide value to the organizations and people they help. A youth program’s value extends far beyond simply calculating the value, for instance, of meals distributed from the Care Cupboard ($68,958).

The real value of the program is all the ways it helps people and changes lives.

Jackie’s Favorite Moment: When Youth Surprise Themselves The young men and women in the earliest days of the program developed a deep capacity for empathy by helping at area food pantries. That led to the creation of the LCCAA Care Cupboard in 2018.

Our youth work together each month to prepare the care packages for distribution.

It was on one of those days that CEO Jackie Boehnlein’s favorite moment occurred.

“I overheard Bobby praising one of the youth for acing a test at school,” she said.

“I stopped in to congratulate the young man as he diligently filled food boxes. He was bashfully proud of himself.”

Jackie says that’s exactly what the Youth Services Program is all about: showing the youth the value they have as individuals as well as community members.

“It does not get any better than helping our youth realize their own strengths and abilities.”

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Participant Spotlight: Hannah Banks Hannah Banks has made a difference “in a big way” by working in the LCCAA Youth Services Program for two years.

The 2020 Steele High School graduate was looking for better paying employment when she went to OhioMeansJobs and was placed with LCCAA. Already handy with tools, Hannah learned to fix bikes but said the interpersonal skills she honed were most important to her.

“Working with different people is a big part,” she said. “My big thing is experiencing new people and actually listening to people to see where they come from.”

Hannah plans to join the FBI and will study criminal justice at Alabama State University this fall. Her favorite activity in the youth program has been helping at food banks (pictured) because people are so grateful, she said.

Hannah’s mother believes the LCCAA Youth Services Program made her daughter more responsible and mature enabling her to juggle multiple priorities.

“It’s a great development tool,” Falana Banks said. “The students get an opportunity to learn different things and solidify skills and become work ready. They have wonderful experiences in the community.”

Participant Spotlight: Jonathan Oyola At 16, Jonathan Oyola has a clear goal: his own restaurant. Overcoming shyness is just one of the benefits he received from the LCCAA Youth Services Program that brings that dream closer.

“I learned a lot of communication skills,” Jonathan said. “I met lots of different people and made connections.”

Jonathan plans to return to the Youth Services Program as he completes his senior year at Lorain High School. After graduating, he hopes to attend the culinary program at Lorain County Community Action Agency – or head to New York.

In addition to food distributions and holiday events, Jonathan really enjoyed fixing bikes, he said. He was among the youth assisting with the Girls in Gear programs hosted at the Bike Shop (pictured).

Coordinator Bobby Taylor says the type of goal Jonathan has is exactly what he hopes for all the youth in the program.

“Our program does more than just provide work experience,” he said.

“We build their character. We allow them to show their worth to the community and we make connections and advocate for them. All of that allows them to fulfill the aspirations and dreams they have for the future.”

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Become a Friend of the Bike Shop!

Every dollar offset by a donation to the Youth Services Program allows us to use more CSBG funding for other programs in the Lorain County Community. We know the power of this community and we know we can help more people and change more lives with your partnership and support.

You can make a difference - just like the young men and women your donation assists. Join Friends of the Bike Shop today and mark your calendar for our upcoming Bike-A-Thon.

Join us by texting BIKEPALS to 44321 or using one of the giving envelopes available at the Bike Shop, our Head Start Centers and our offices.

Friends of the LCCAA Bike Shop Giving Levels and Benefits Rider $10-$50 Note from Youth Listing in Youth Annual Report Coupon for Free Bike Inspection Listing on Friends Web Page Featured Listing on Friends Web Page

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LCCAA Bike Shop T-Shirt Feature in Bike-A-Thon materials

Cyclist Pathfinder Trailblazer $50-$250 $250-$500 $500 and up

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Frank’s Favorite Moment: Empowering a Young Customer One of the times I visited the Youth Center in 2019, a young person about 11 years old came in to have his bike looked at. He was proud to come in on his own, since he had earned money mowing lawns and doing chores. He felt very excited that he could pay for the repairs on his own.

what needed to be done.

They were able to fix what was wrong with the bike. Our young customer was very happy that they treated him like a customer and not just a young child.

The youth demonstrated teamwork skills, showed no problem with using and then translating the diagnosis of the problem.

Two teams, assigned by Bobby, came to analyze what was wrong with the bike. One team was doing the analysis in English; the I personally was very excited and proud to other team was doing it in Spanish. They were see this event. It emphasizes what we do at using problem solving skills to accomplish the Youth Center.

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Lorain County Community Action Agency 936 Broadway Avenue, Lorain, Ohio 44052 1-888-245-2009 www.lccaa.net