Weekly Media Roundup: August 28, 2019

With New Bradenton Facility, Boys & Girls Clubs Will Serve Even More Youth in Manatee, Bradenton Herald (Florida)

This week, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Manatee County in Florida cut the ribbon for a new, 37,800-square-foot facility where students will be able to learn healthy behaviors and discover new interests year-round. The new facility, which will house afterschool and summer learning programs for up to 550 children, includes art studios, computer labs, a gymnasium, basketball court, and a commercial kitchen where students will learn about culinary arts and nutrition through hands-on cooking lessons. The program has also added a graduation and career coach to help students chart their life paths. “The kids walk in [to the new facility] and go wow,” Chief Operating Officer Beth Clark told the Bradenton Herald. “There were these two little boys that kept spinning around as they walked to take it all in.”

After-School LGBTQ Art Program Provides Community for Queer Youth, Philadelphia Gay News (Pennsylvania)

An arts collective in Philadelphia has created an afterschool program for LGBTQ+ high schoolers to learn about and express themselves. The Young Artist Program meets Monday through Thursday and includes academic support, college tours, snacks, discussions, and art instruction. Students attend rallies together and learn from local artists who belong to marginalized communities. “Outside of that space, I kind of have to censor myself, the parts in me that I can’t express because I don’t know how it’ll be received in certain places,” a student named Ivy told the Philadelphia Gay News. “But in this space, it’s safe for me to be me and near people who can relate to the things that I say because it’s stuff that they're going through also.”

Hope and Homework Help, The Post Star (New York)

When the Revive Whitehall Committee in Whitehall, New York surveyed community members, 99 percent of the 200 respondents said an afterschool program would help the community’s youth. Thus the “Hope After-School” program was born. When it launches in October, it will provide homework help, tutoring, social etiquette lessons, cooking instruction, field trips, and more to students in third through fifth grades. “We want to … make people feel like they have hope, they can thrive, the community is growing, everybody has good potential and possibilities and a positive attitude in general for the psychology of the community,” the Rev. Jim Peterson told the Post Star.

This West Philly Weightlifting Club Is Making Fitness More Accessible for Inner-City Youth, Philadelphia Magazine (Pennsylvania)

A free afterschool program called the Freedom Barbell Club in West Philadelphia combines Olympic weightlifting, science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, and social-emotional learning to help students grow holistically. Students learn weightlifting techniques and connect them to situational math and science problems. They also develop coping skills through yoga and meditation. “The barbell has been my most consistent friend and support system [these past two years],” Jibri Douglas, co-creator of the program, told Philadelphia Magazine. “I began to realize that Olympic weightlifting is both inaccessible and inequitable for black and brown people in my local neighborhood.”