What is the Youth Impact Program?

The Youth Impact Program is for at-risk middle school boys living in the inner cities of our nation, leveraging their interest in football to take them off the streets for five weeks in the summer and enhance their academic performance, develop character, and build long-term mentoring relationships with established and local inner city community leaders and teachers.

This program specifically targets the extremely high-risk group of inner city 12 to 14 year-old African-American and Hispanic boys. They are at a critical age when academic progress and character development are threatened due to their living environment. Impact builds a foundation for accomplishment and incorporates post-program follow-up that promotes success in these aspects and in life.

We work with a major inner city NCAA university's athletic, academic, and community outreach departments, the Youth Impact Program brings together certified local middle school teachers from the inner city and university students to function as program mentors, coaches, and teachers who are consistently present with participants throughout the eight-hour day.

After two successful pilot years with the Los Angeles inner city and the University of Southern California (USC), the program has solidified its value for:

• Creating a nexus of local, city, and state leaders and university staff, students and alumni, along with the National Football League (NFL), to pursue a solution to the national problem confronting our at-risk, inner city youth
• Teaching conflict resolution, anger-management, and the character values needed to succeed in the inner city community and reject gang participation and criminal activities
• Addressing low academic performance by educating with a football-themed curriculum, creative teaching methods, a low teacher-to-student ratio, and the support of university-led research and curriculum development
• Exposing participants to the importance and attainability of education as a student athlete
• Establishing much-needed mentor relationships with at-risk youth that are local, consistent, and long-term
• Providing daily, reliable meals when most young boys living in inner city communities do not receive consistent, nutritious food
• Training and developing inner city teachers and university students in fostering relationships and mentoring
• Utilizing NCAA Division 1 professors and coaches, university student athletes and alumni, and current and former NFL players from the inner city to enhance the program's results.