Youth Force is a workforce development program that addresses barriers to career and college success by providing academic support, mentoring, paid internships, college readiness, and financial literacy. It helps students gain skills, real-world experience, and guidance to navigate higher education and career pathways, fostering long-term economic stability.
Dress for Success (DFS) is dedicated to fostering economic independence for women. Through its comprehensive programs, DFS offers a robust network of support, professional clothing, and crucial development tools. These resources are designed to help women not only succeed in the workplace but also to flourish in all aspects of life. Participants gain invaluable skills and confidence, understanding they have the power to shape their own lives and achieve personal success.
Through its Workforce Training program, Green Teen Youth Vocational Training actively engages at-risk youth aged 14-19. Participants earn wages while developing essential vocational and employment skills. The program operates after school three times a week in the Spring and Fall, and during the day throughout the Summer. Staff members are committed to identifying and building on individual strengths, which helps youth gain the confidence and social-emotional tools necessary to manage their behaviors and navigate their social environments effectively. All activities are strategically designed for comprehensive life and vocational skills development.
CommunityConnect is an after-school and summer academic enrichment program specifically designed for K-5 English as a New Language (ENL) students within the Rhinebeck and Red Hook school districts. The program delivers essential academic support, addressing challenges that language barriers might present in the home environment. As a result, students experience improved language, reading, and writing skills, leading to increased literacy and academic performance, enhanced confidence, and better social development.
Youth in communities like Poughkeepsie are facing an escalating mental health crisis, compounded by significant disparities in accessing support. THRIVE: Advancing Mental Wellness for Youth directly addresses this by providing essential behavioral health services. We are dedicated to helping young people overcome the long-term effects of trauma, such as violence, poverty, and food insecurity, which can lead to poor social outcomes and health disparities.
River Haven provides emergency shelter for runaway and homeless youth, assisting them as they collaborate with a Care Manager to either reunite with family or find alternative safe housing. The program offers a range of evidence-based Positive Youth Development opportunities and learning experiences designed to help youth heal from past trauma, acquire new skills, and cultivate protective factors essential for healthy development.
SproutEd in Newburgh & Beacon offers a garden-based educational program specifically for K-2 students. The program involves maintaining school food gardens and providing lessons throughout the school year that focus on nutrition, cooking, plant science, ecology, and food systems. Its curriculum emphasizes experiential, hands-on learning, which allows students to engage in a fun and effective way to build their academic and social-emotional abilities.
Book Buddies works to improve reading proficiency by recruiting volunteers to read individually with 3rd and 4th-grade students who are reading below their grade level. Volunteers are equipped with training on various materials to build students’ reading skills and confidence. Additionally, Classroom Book Buddies volunteers engage in dialogic read-alouds, ensuring children have a positive and enriching experience with literature.
Ending the Silence (ETS) delivers a powerful presentation to middle and high school students, featuring a certified NAMI lead presenter alongside a young adult who shares their personal story of navigating a mental health condition. This program directly addresses critical concerns including substance/alcohol abuse, suicide prevention, bullying, and the fight against stigma. By sharing these experiences, ETS works to increase awareness, alter perceptions of mental health, and cultivate essential citizenship skills that enable students to support their peers.
Pawling Library’s Children & Young Adult Programs aim to improve social and educational outcomes for children by providing opportunities to learn, play, and interact positively with others. The staff focus on developmentally appropriate programs that utilize kids’ interests to improve the skills that will help them achieve ongoing school and career success. Literacy is a primary focus.
Spark Studios offers film and media arts instruction to 60 underserved teens (ages 14-19). The program also provides paid work experiences and a safe, after-school environment where participants can acquire valuable technical and workforce skills, access technology, explore creative sector careers, build positive relationships, engage in creative activities, and establish community connections.
The Vassar College-English Language Learners Outreach Program (VELLOP) endeavors to boost the academic success of English Language Learners (ELLs) within the Poughkeepsie City School District, a district challenged by a scarcity of Spanish-speaking teachers. VELLOP tutors, comprised of Vassar students (many of whom are Spanish speakers), work in partnership with teachers to support ELL performance. A total of thirty college students commit as much as eight hours per week to tutoring these schoolchildren.
Life Skills for Teens is designed to cultivate internal assets and instill protective factors in teenagers. The program incorporates various prevention, educational, and cultural diversity activities, and supports students as they transition between elementary, middle, and high school. Participants engage in both community service and leadership skill-building initiatives. The program is further strengthened by the implementation of evidence-based environmental strategies and evidence-based/informed programs.
"YOU CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH BOOKS
INTO THE HANDS OF ENOUGH CHILDREN"
Through our partnership with Dolly Parton's Imagination Library we are dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to age five. Research shows that having books in the home is one of the most effective ways to encourage early literacy and academic success.