S P O T L I G H T on Steysi Youth of the Year
Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice 33
S P O T L I G H T on Steysi Youth of the Year
Youth of the Year is a year-round program focused on the development of Boys & Girls Clubs’ members as community leaders. It begins at the local level as each Club selects its Youth of the Month. A finalist from each of BGCV’ s core programs competes to become the Club-wide Youth of the Year. Candidates are evaluated on a number of criteria including: academic performance, service in the community and the Club, public speaking, and essay writing. Several thousand dollars in scholarships are awarded to the youth who participate in this Clubwide competition.
This year, BGCV had EIGHT Youth of the Year finalists! That is more than the past three years, combined! Ryan, Juliana, Fernando, Kaylee, Maria, Alex, Steysi, and Andrew all competed to be this year’ s Youth of the Year Champion. Each finalist did an amazing job making the Club exceptionally
proud. With the help of judges: Gracie Brown Hanson, Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors; Mary Lowe, Media Temple; Colin Leonard, Clearlake Capital Group; Tony Payne, Google; Rachel Zaiden, Los Angeles County 3rd Supervisorial District; and Idalia Munoz, a former Youth of the Year Winner, BGCV is proud to announce the 2017 Youth of the Year Winner, Steysi Perez!
Steysi is set to begin the next stage of her exciting life journey at Mount St. Mary’ s University studying neo-natal nursing. Steysi credits the Club for“ making me the person I am today: a responsible active young adult who is involved in my community.” She is able to fulfill her dreams through the help of supporters like you.
Special thanks to Google and Tony Payne for hosting the Youth of the Year event and providing each finalist with scholarship money!
Junior Staff are Ready to Work!
Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice( BGCV) is host to a ten week, job readiness program that provides teens with their first glimpse into what it takes to get hired. Teens learn to create, edit and fine-tune their resumes and cover letters to help give them an advantage over other applicants applying for their first jobs. Throughout the ten weeks, our teens met with professionals from a variety of backgrounds who give advice and tips on how to successfully manage job interviews, relationships with co-workers and networking to maintain and grow relationships with organizations they’ ve worked with in the past.
With the help of Fred Ebrahemi and Kelly Wigmore, our teens were able to practice mock-interviews, both in person and over the phone, conduct job-shadowing and receive resume coaching, in order to prepare them for the future. BGCV, with the generous sponsorship of Kayne Anderson Capital Foundation and Bank of America, was able to hire 15 high school students for paid, eightweek summer internships at the Club and nearby restaurant Yellow Fever. Our teens were exposed to real job experience, performance reviews and ongoing feedback from Club staff, which will help prepare our members for their future careers after high school.
A huge thanks to Kayne Anderson Capital Foundation and Bank of America for supporting this innovative and empowering program for our teens!
Boys & Girls Clubs of Venice 33