PROPEL INC

Brief statement of organization's mission and goals. Our mission is to foster the leadership potential, academic and career success, and healthy living choices of youth (ages 10-24) at-risk of or already on the fringes of the justice system living in the South Palm Beach County area by providing after-school programming, community involvement and enrichment activities, summer camp opportunities, job placement support and college scholarships. Description of current programs, activities and accomplishments. Since 2004 our programs have steadily grown serving over 600 youth to date and with over 75 now enrolled. We have given out over $200,000 in college scholarships and currently award 6 new scholarships each year. Forty-three PROPEL youth have graduated high school and 35 of them have gone on to college, nearly half of them with scholarships from PROPEL. A full dozen have already graduated college: for all but one of them, they are the first in their family to do so. PROPEL's principal focus is Education and Leadership Development – creating positive educational opportunities for our kids, building confidence in academic potential and opening up possibilities. To that end, we keep kids busy with positive activities geared at improving the academic achievement, health outcomes, and employability of our kids. The kids at PROPEL know that if they do their part, they will have access to support for school, college scholarships, finding a job, and making healthy choices in their lives. We operate an education & mentorship center, called the HUB. Every day, we provide homework assistance in math, reading, and other areas to about 25 middle and high school students, up to 50 unique students each year. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays we have professional tutors and/or certified teachers working with students. We provide healthy snacks and transportation from school/to home. Out of necessity, a “computer loan program” has evolved. Students can check out the 4 lap-tops we have on the weekends for school work and projects. We understand the importance of good health to support leadership development and educational achievement so we created a Healthy Living Program which provides various opportunities for physical activity through our fitness component including basketball, dance , karate, yoga, volleyball; as well as encouraging healthy foods choices with our Filling the Gap Project which provides youth with healthy meals and daily snacks. Our Health Program also addresses the impact of behavior choices such as smoking, drinking, drugs, and the role of self esteem, healthy relationships, and spirituality. We starting our Filling the Gap food project over 10 years ago as a weekly meal for about 15-20 youth. Today we are regularly serving 60 youth for dinner on Wednesdays and 50 on Sundays and can see between 5 and 40 kids every day during our afterschool programming. We also sponsor 3 healthy alternative holiday meals: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Feast. The kids are involved with meal planning, shopping, preparation and clean-up. We also operate a multi-tiered employment and apprenticeship program. Through our good relationships with area businessmen, we have been able to create employment opportunities for our kids: both entry level positions aimed at learning employment skills and also “good” jobs and career specific opportunities based on the youth's interest. We encourage leadership development through community service and our PROPEL Ambassador program which gives kids the opportunity to act as junior program and event coordinators for PROPEL activities, at community events and fundraisers. These are sometimes paid positions and sometimes volunteer opportunities.