DIRECTED INITIATIVES FOR YOUTH INC
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Mission Statement
Founded in 2008 as a direct response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the enormous toll its effect had on the children and youth of the Greater New Orleans area and beyond, Directed Initiatives for Youth, Inc. (DIY) co-founders, Penny and Gerald Williams, New Orleans natives sprang into action. Their overall mission then and now is to provide positive opportunities and experiences for youth between the ages of 6-15 years of age that will assist them in becoming individuals who will make a powerful impact on their communities now and well into adulthood, having a multi-generational impact. This mission is accomplished through the implementation of DIY’s proven summer and year around enrichment programing. Developing a comprehensive multifaceted curriculum and program, to address the “whole child”, our co-founders established an all-inclusive approach combining academics, the arts, athletics, nutrition and good stewardship programming under the umbrella, Excite! All Stars.
About This Cause
Our year-round enrichment programs feature athletics, writing, art lessons, hands-on business models and community involvement. In addition to making a difference in the self-esteem of our children, our program has reduced childhood obesity, improved physical fitness, increased interest in reading, created awareness of healthy food choices, provided career direction and instilled pride of culture and community. Below is a list of our current programming. - Excite All Stars Summer Camp: Our summer day camp gives children (Ages 6-15) the chance to enjoy camp in small and more intimate groups. Each week, camp has a different theme such as cooking with Coach, Time Travelers or Whacky Olympics. Activities include games, sports, music and dance, theatre, and team building - Seasonal Sports Clinics: Excite provides seasonal sports clinics including basketball, golf, and soccer. - Super Saturday Events: Monthly out-of-school-time programming that focuses on academic enrichment including academic games, tutoring, test prep, sports and fitness, musical theatre, dance, plus a whole lot more. - ELI “Excite Leadership Initiative” is a series of workshops designed to empower teen leaders. We believe that leadership is a learned behavior and our teens learn to lead by doing. - (STEAM)- Arts and Cultural enrichment program. Under this program we have a variety of activities including: Drama Kids International and Project Prodigy Band camp. Drama Kids is a curriculum that was first implemented in 1989 and helps youth in the following ways: Confidence, Creative Thinking, Public Speaking Skills, Self Esteem, Acting Abilities, and Leadership and Teamwork. Instructors will spend 8 weeks during the summer and 2-12 week sessions during the school year implementing curriculum 3 x per week. -Electric Girls and STEM Nola deliver STEM programming to youth during summer and out of school time programming. - Project Prodigy is a collaboration of the Excite All Stars, Professional Musician Joe Saulsbury, Orleans Parish Schools, and local musicians. The primary goal of the program is to provide music instruction to New Orleans inner city youth from the fourth through eighth grades. Students will spend 8 fun and inspiring weeks with renowned teachers, exciting artists, and fellow campers from across the city. Designed from the ground up with the middle school and high school student in mind, students will grow as both musicians and individuals. Their experience will be positively life-changing this year, DIY is at Fannie C. Williams and Einstein Charter schools and Kingsley House offering “Windows N2 Excite,” a technology/robotics club and “Soccer For Success.” And, it offers a film camp for teens, an anti bullying education and specialty fieldtrips. We have grown from 20 youth in 2007 to serving more than 220 in 2016 at summer camp, and 200 additional youth during the school year. Last summer we had a wait list of more than 100 youth for summer camp. DIY is privileged to work and be supported by some top-flight organizations such as: All State Sugar Bowl Foundation, Nike, New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood, 1st Tee of Greater New Orleans, New Orleans Center for Creative Art’s Culinary School, LSU Health Services, Anytime Fitness and the UNO Film School. Many of our partners are long term. For example, the Baptist Theological Center and the Audubon Nature Institute have been associated with DIY for eight years and for five years the Institution of Women and Ethnic Studies has been providing life skills and AIDS/Sex education to our teens. DIY has many volunteers who help make our programming succeed. We’ve worked with Youth Works and received more than 90 volunteers per year from them. We also volunteer at such events as the Zurich Classic, the Sunbelt Conference Tournament, GiveNOLA and at New Orleans Saints events. !