The Power Project
St. Francis Neighborhood Center, in the Spring of 2009, established a new and innovative youth development program called The Power Project. The Power Project consists of three major components: education, mentoring, and the arts. This program provides disadvantaged youth, ages 5-18, with the opportunity to receive one-on-one homework and study assistance, attend educational seminars/workshops, participate in our dance, art, and music groups, and establish valuable relationships with caring and responsive individuals who will serve as positive role models within their lives.
All of this takes place on site at the Center after schools are dismissed Monday through Thursday. The program can accommodate 30 children at a time. Once we acquire/build our new Center, we are planning to increase our enrollment to 100 youth (within 2-3 years).
The educational component of The Power Project entails tutoring and homework help in all school subjects. Instructors will evaluate the child’s strengths and weakness within the subject(s) and customize their teaching style and content accordingly.
In addition, youth are invited through The Power Project to explore and develop their artistic skills by participating in the Center’s dance, art, and music programs. By providing artistic outlets, children are encouraged to release emotions and life’s stresses in constructive fashion that encourages creativity and self-awareness without the use of violence or drugs. In this way children are exposed to the arts in a manner that fosters leadership development and academic enrichment.
To build on to the personal advancements the youth are making through the educational and artistic components of The Power Project, mentors provide support, guide, and reinforce all positive changes in the child’s life by creating meaningful and stable relationships with the youth. This much needed support, that may not exist anywhere else in the child’s life, acts as an essential and pivotal factor in the child’s resiliency and consequently fosters self-awareness and enduring positive development within the child.
Children and their guardians (when applicable), upon voluntary enrollment, meet with the Assistant Director of St. Francis Neighborhood Center to establish an individualized plan that combines the three aspects of The Power Project in which they wish to participate and set measurable and realistic goals for their future development.
By tailoring our program to the needs of each individual child through education, art, and mentoring, we aspire to foster learning, self-expression, community connections, personal responsibility, confidence, and self-awareness within each person. The Power Project provides the opportunity for all this in a safe and nurturing environment that may be nonexistent in the child’s life, free of peer pressure, drugs, violence, prejudice, and judgment.
Get involved in this program through a volunteer or internship position today!
If you are interested in enrolling your child in this program, please contact the Program Manager, Corrine Handy, at CHandy@stfranciscenter.org or 410-669-2612.
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