Success: From Pilot to Program

i14479639_1377481162292148_86350581960568170_nYouth Odyssey is always expanding into new areas of programming when resources are available. This year we had the opportunity to return to Lexington Manor. Lexington used to be one of our regular programs but, once they decided to tear them down and rebuild the complex we had to take a break. Now Lexington is up and running again we chose to run a pilot program there, in hopes of finding interested youth again.

A pilot program is just a short, one week program where we meet at our new site from 4:30-6:00pm Monday thru Thursday. Unfortunately, when we started our pilot program at Lexington in September, that Monday was a holiday so we only met with the youth Tuesday to Thursday. The purpose of a pilot program is to see if we can generate enough attendance and interest to make it worth extending into a normal length program (three weeks).

14463147_1377496212290643_5328453169272360149_nFlashback: While waiting in the office for (hopefully) some youth to show up the clock was ticking away and it wasn’t looking too promising. Until about 4:45pm one boy walked in and asked if we were “that youth thing.” I enthusiastically said “yes! We are Youth Odyssey and we are going to be here for the week to play some games with you guys.” He looked around, pretty unimpressed since no one else was there, and then he politely asked, “can I go and see if some of my friends can join?” My answer being, “of course! the more the merrier!”  At the start of any program, as a facilitator, you have no idea what to expect; “are they going to show up?”, “will they like it and stick around?”, “how will the behavior be?” After he asked to go get more kids to participate, all of my uncertainty was gone and I knew we in for an awesome program.

For the rest of the first day kids kept trickling in and out to invite their friends to join as they saw them walking by the office and by the end of the program we had seven awesome kids participating in Youth Odyssey. For the next two days of programs the numbers kept increasing until, on the last day of Youth Odyssey, we had a total of eleven kids actively participating and doing a great job of it as well.

14484963_1377495882290676_4009102844384819555_nPresent Day: The youth at Lexington impressed me so much that I asked the office manager and the Youth Odyssey program director if there was another time we could run a longer program with Lexington. After a bit of calendar combing they decided that we would be back at Lexington for another week of programs on October 3-6th! Due to our already pre-planned schedule we won’t be able to do a full length program with Lexington this semester but we are trying to keep them involved in Youth Odyssey; fostering our connections with the youth and the employees so we will be able to have an amazing full program with them when the calendar allows.

I also discovered that a lot of the kids in the Lexington program attend South Park Middle School. So we are trying to encourage them to attend Youth Odyssey there as well. (Fingers crossed!) Youth Odyssey (and myself) are so excited that we had such a successful program in such a small amount of time and can’t wait to go back and work with them again!