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Trailblazers is the central program of Shoot Your Best Shot for Youth. At-risk middle school and High School students participate in a structured sports fitness program.
The program model focuses on youth between the ages of 8 and 16 years of age. Trailblazers offer a series of Sports Clinics in 6-week intervals, three days a week MWF for two hours. The program is a combination of six weeks of energizing sports and fitness education sessions. The structured program includes team-building, educational workshops and group activities.
The program ends with an option for the youth to sign up for the next sports clinic or other programs and services for the remainder of the year. Every 6 weeks will be a different sports focus. For instance, January- Basketball, March Baseball, May Tennis, July Golf, and October -Boxing. All sports programs will be facilitated by an athletic sports coach. Youth participants will also gain opportunities to participate in outside activities and events. The program will also host guest celebrities for inspiration, support, and for Q and A sessions.
Roots will be a youth advisory committee made up of twenty participants that focus on creating better health choices for themselves and other youth. The target population is participants 14 to 21 years of age. The advisory committee participate in weekly sessions to create the pathway for making better more informed choices on a host of topics to be covered throughout the program. Those topics will include nutrition, healthy food choices, peer pressure, abstinence, substance abuse intervention and education, and violence prevention and intervention.
The advisory committee will be managed by a master’s degree level health education intern student. The committee will meet one day a week for two hours per session for an entire year. The committee will also host four annual community projects that includes disseminating PPE supplies, food box distribution, volunteering at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, grass maintenance and snow removal for seniors, reading to seniors via Zoom or in person and advocating for healthier snacks in the vending machines at local schools. Each youth committee member can earn and prizes for their participation and completion of projects.
Shoot Your Best Shot STEM IT will target youth between the ages of 8 and 16 years of age. There will be two groups of students in groups of ten each. Sessions will be held two days a week for two hours per day.
STEM IT will provide an opportunity for youth to explore how Science, Technology, Engineering and Math works in the real world. Options include experiments and projects in Video Game Creation, Robotics, Veterinary Science, Crime Scene Investigation, Paleontology, Engineering, Space, Biology, Chemistry, Oceanography, LEGO Robotics, Medicine, Programming, 3-D Printing, Drones and more.
The program is in partnership with local universities and will be interned and instructed by engineering and science students.
The Liberty program focuses on students who are chronically suspended from middle and high schools. The goal of the program is to rekindle the youth’s commitment to learning and being successful in the classroom. By empowering young people to finish school, mentors are improving the student’s success in the work world as adults. Shoot Your Best Shoot recruit adult volunteers with a background in education to provide tutoring three days per week for 90 minutes per session. Each volunteer will tutor in groups of three to four students in person or via zoom.
Shoot Your Best Shoot target four schools each year and recruit ten children per school to participate in the tutoring program with a focus on Math, Science and English.
Next Level engages youth involved in the juvenile justice system. The target is forty youth per year, equaling twenty every six months.
The mentoring/counseling relationship is utilized to establish a program of change in the young person’s life. The one-on-one mentor/counseling encourages goal setting, self- discipline, and skill development that improves the young person’s sense of hopefulness. Mentor/Counselor and youth work one-on-one for a 12 weeks and are also offered opportunities to participate in weekly group activities and outings. Youth will also be provided with the opportunity to participate in the One Summer Chicago Youth Employment and other employment opportunities with the local municipalities where they reside.
Shoot Your Best Shoot Discovery Program component will partner with students from Columbia College and After School Matters to provide free art and design classes and resources to a total of sixty youth ages 14 to 21. The partnerships will inspire young people to make the visual arts a part of their lives, bring education in art, design, and new technologies to the south side of Chicago and inform young people about art and design career opportunities. The SYBS program manager will also invite local artist to visit and share information and inspiring stories with the participating students. Art sessions will be held quarterly with twenty students each. Art sessions will be held one day a week for 90 minutes for six weeks.
Shoot Youth Best Shoot have partnered with Kirby Rehabilitation to provide education workshops on substance abuse and violence prevention sessions for fifty 6 and 7th graders and fifty, 8 through 12th grade students. In addition, SYBS outreach to local high schools on the south side of Chicago and Cook County southern suburbs to identify at risk youth that need to be referred for one on one counseling for drug use.
The SYBS youth counselor partner with the local school to create a linkage agreement and referral process to track and monitor progress and successful completions. Also, SYBS provides a series of age-appropriate educational workshops included but not limited to substance abuse education, dating, date rape, sex education, cultural diversity, peer pressure, COVID-19, and sexting. The workshops are held at various local community centers throughout the far south side and southern suburb locations. Sessions are held twice a month year round.
Shoot Your Best Shot Sports Mania Summer Camp Clinic is open to boys and girls ages 4-16. These non-contact sports summer camp clinics will focus on improving a child’s skill level and offer fundamental instruction on all positions on a combination of sports such as basketball, baseball, boxing, golf, and tennis. Youth are grouped by age and skill level. Space is limited to 135 youth. Camps will take place in Hazel Crest, Country Club Hills and University Park. Clinics will be held Mid May thru July, five days per week for four hours.
