Youth & Adult Programs
Youth & Adult Programs for Personal Growth
Our Youth and Adult Programs section provides information on some of the nation’s most prominent initiatives designed to uplift and empower individuals in need. These programs offer opportunities for skill-building, education, mentorship, and personal growth, catering to young people and adults seeking to improve their lives and futures.
Whether it’s connecting youth to leadership development programs, vocational training, or community-based resources, or guiding adults to career advancement opportunities and support networks, our goal is to provide a comprehensive roadmap to success.
By highlighting impactful programs, we aim to inspire change, foster resilience, and create pathways to a brighter future for all.
4-H is a community of 6 million young people across America learning leadership, citizenship and life skills. 4-H'ers participate in fun, hands-on learning activities, supported by the latest research of land-grant universities focusing on Science, Engineering and Technology, Healthy Living and Citizenship.
A Better Chance is the preeminent resource for identifying, recruiting and developing leaders among young people of color in the United States. A Better Chance works with some of the most elite private schools in the nation to give outstanding minority students opportunities they may not otherwise have.
Provides comprehensive after-school programs that are fun for kids while keeping them safe and helping them achieve success in school and life. Prepares middle school kids for high school, college, and the 21st century by offering academic support, enrichment opportunities, and health/fitness activities. Serves 70,000 youth annually through after-school and summer programs in 13 cities across the country.
Boys & Girls Clubs offer programs and services that promote and enhance the development of boys and girls by instilling a sense of competence, usefulness, belonging and influence. Boys & Girls Clubs are a safe place to learn and grow – all while having fun. They are truly The Positive Place for Kids.
Non-profit youth organization focused on building self-esteem, character development, leadership skills, and social responsibility
Since 1877, The Fresh Air Fund, a not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations in the country to more than 1.7 million New York City children from disadvantaged communities. Each year, thousands of children visit volunteer host families in 13 states and Canada through the Friendly Town Program or attend Fresh Air Fund camps.
Girls Incorporated programming can be offered anywhere girls are found, including Girls Incorporated centers, schools, churches, community centers and housing projects. The majority of Girls Incorporated centers are located in low-income areas and provide a weekly average of 30 hours of after-school, weekend, and summer activities. Girls Incorporated serves girls at Girls Incorporated centers and at other sites through collaboration with other youth agencies, school systems, and individual educators. Programs include: Economic Literacy – girls learn how to manage money, invest, and general global economics, Guidance on How To Combat Peer Pressure, Operation Smart – girls develop an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Project Bold –girls learn self-defense skills, Community Activism, Media Literacy as well athletic activities.
The Head Start program provides grants to local public and private non-profit and for-profit agencies to provide comprehensive child development services to economically disadvantaged children and families, with a special focus on helping preschoolers develop the early reading and math skills they need to be successful in school. Head Start programs promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled children and families. They engage parents in their children's learning and help them in making progress toward their educational, literacy, and employment goals.
HIGHSCHOOLSTARTUPS
This website is intended for young people serious about starting a business on the web. Highschoolstartups.com contains nuts and bolts advice, methods of encouraging entrepreneurship among young people, and an understanding of how youth can actually give you an advantage as an entrepreneur.
INROADS
The mission of INROADS is to develop and place talented minority youth in business and industry and prepare them for corporate and community leadership. INROADS seeks high-performing African American, Hispanic, and Native American Indian students for internship opportunities with some of the nation's largest companies.
LEAD
Recognizing that a lack of role models in corporate America was discouraging students from underserved communities from pursuing careers in business, executives at McNeil Pharmaceutical launched LEAD at The Wharton School in 1980. LEAD aims to create an innovative and intensive summer business program that would serve as the foundation for lifelong partnerships between outstanding students and the nation's leading corporations and business schools.
With a goal of character-building, good sportsmanship and discipline, Police Athletic Leagues (PAL) provides opportunities to bring young athletes together to compete in a championship environment in several sports.
Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1963 as one of New York City's first mentoring programs for high school students of color. Over the past four decades, SEO has expanded its programs to benefit more than 6,000 young people, helping them develop throughout high school, college, and their careers. SEO has grown into an established nonprofit organization with offices in New York City and London, more than 30 full-time staff, and programs that serve over 1,000 students, parents, and alumni each year. SEO endeavors to prepare young people of color to lead by example in their families, communities, and careers.
The Toigo Foundation was founded 18 years ago to encourage exceptional minority students to consider finance, not only as a rewarding career but also as an opportunity to be the future leaders in the global economy. The Toigo Foundation aspires to create a self-sustaining structure that leverages finance as a vehicle to promote positive social change.
As one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit organizations, today’s YMCAs serve thousands of U.S. communities, uniting 21 million children and adults of all ages, races, faiths, backgrounds, abilities, and income levels. The Y's community development efforts include alternative schools, gang intervention, family literacy programs, tutoring, substance abuse prevention, job training and employment services, permanent and transitional housing, and much more.
YouthBuild is a youth and community development program that simultaneously addresses core issues facing low-income communities: housing, education, employment, crime prevention, and leadership development. In YouthBuild programs, low-income young people ages 16-24 work toward their GEDs or high school diplomas, learn job skills serve their communities by building affordable housing, and transform their own lives and roles in society.