Elevate New York, Inc.
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Mission Statement
Elevate New York’s mission is building long-term, life-changing relationships with urban youth, equipping them to thrive and contribute to their community. We believe that every child is of great worth and has the desire and potential to succeed, together we can develop the next generation of strong leaders.
About This Cause
Elevate New York improves the lives of New York City Title 1 public school students through four coordinated components: daily accredited classes, mentoring, adventure activities, and college and career training. These components introduce our students to positive and caring adult mentors who ensure they don’t have to navigate through challenges alone. Our holistic approach to youth development provides social-emotional support to youth as they explore new experiences and face new challenges; providing them with the foundation necessary to flourish into leaders. Our Youth Elevate youth reside in the South Bronx, a severely underserved community in New York City, and attend schools in Community School District #8. 100% of Elevate’s population is eligible for free lunch and overall Elevate youth are 77% Latinx, 21% African American 1% Asian, and 1% White. The community they call home faces significant hurdles. According to recent census data, the poverty rate is 36.9%, with 16.6% earning less than $9,155 per year for a family of three. The achievement gap is severe and financial, as well as familial. Social-Emotional Learning Incorporated into all Elevate New York’s curriculum are thirteen character qualities designed to develop social-emotional skills and empower students to succeed. These thirteen skills and qualities are vision, courage, respect, caring, responsibility, positive work ethic, career-mindedness, communication, leadership, problem-solving, decision-making, and goal-setting. One of Elevates’ core beliefs is that creating a culture of selflessness and service is the foundation for leadership. Our students quickly learn that to serve others is to serve yourself and to serve yourself is to be the best version of oneself. The Elevate USA Model has five distinct elements: 1. Full-Time, Salaried Teacher-Mentors: Teacher-Mentors come from similar backgrounds as the Elevate students and they epitomize Thriving Contribution. Teacher-Mentors are accessible to Elevate youth 24/7/365. 2. Year-Round Programming: Elevate USA staff design relationship-building experiences during the school day, after school and even during school vacations. 3. Cross-Age Mentoring: Elevate high school students complete training to mentor younger students. They then teach life skills and character traits at a local area elementary school. 4. Long-term Relational Approach: Elevate USA Teacher-Mentors work with students from year-to-year creating a “pipeline” of influence from 4th through 12th grade. 5. Four Program Areas: a. In-School b. Mentoring c. Adventure d. Post-Secondary In-School All Elevate New York (ENY) high school students attend daily accredited classes taught in public schools and all classes count towards graduation. The year-long, five-days- a-week curriculum is fully aligned with Common Core Standards and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Competencies. Curricula is centered around our seven character quality for success - vision, courage, respect, caring, responsibility, positive work ethic, and integrity- and our six skills for success- communication, leadership, career mindedness, problem solving, decision making, and goal setting. Students collaborate with each other and staff through experiential learning, group activities, and discussions. Each academic year students complete 36 weeks, 180 days, of classes. The ENY curriculum is broken down by both week and day. Each week has defined objectives, academic and career skills, common core standards, character qualities, developmental assets, and social-emotional learning skills. Each day has a defined lesson plan that corresponds with the weekly objectives. Mentoring Our teacher-mentors spend fifty percent of their out-of-classroom time mentoring high school and middle school students. Mentoring occurs after school, on weekends, and during academic breaks and students have access to their teacher-mentors twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year. Inherent to the success of our mission is the relationships between students and mentors and relationships do not pause at the end of the school day. This approach allows teacher-mentors to support the “whole child”- discovering their talents, interests, hopes, fears, and challenges both in and outside of the classroom. By building a relationship both in and outside the classroom, teacher-mentors become life-long, positive role models ultimately influencing the trajectory of a child’s future. Adventure Elevate New York believes that empowering youth to explore life beyond their comfort zone is an important aspect of leadership development. Our program utilizes new and challenging experiences as a tool to develop teamwork and leadership skills, in addition to building confidence and self-worth in our youth. Living in urban environments, many of our students have little access to nature. Therefore, lessons taught in the classroom are applied in hands-on activities such as rafting, skiing, snowboarding, and horseback riding. Not only does this reinforce our character qualities, students are taught they can do things they’ve never attempted before and begin to develop a love for the outdoors. Post-Secondary Many of our students are the first in their families to attend college. Our college and career programming ensures that all of our students have a plan for post-secondary success. We provide support for each step of the college admission process; exam preparation, applications, essay writing, scholarships, and admission interviews. In addition, we support students in career planning to develop a concrete post-secondary plan. Impact Since our founding, 99% of Elevate students have graduated high school on time and 86% of Elevate graduates enrolled in college, the military, or trade school. Currently 98% of Elevate students are on track to graduate high school on time.