Alive Center NFP

2023 Organizational Goals

Alive Center Program Delivery Goals:
● Promote strong mental health and facilitate early intervention for any developing mental health issues.
● Provide local teens with a free, accessible, safe, inclusive, and supervised place to go after school (especially for teens whose parents work and underserved or minority teens).
● Provide teens with a space to create and innovate new Teen-Led-Teen-Driven programs, clubs, events, and campaigns.
● Provide high-quality, accessible tutoring that is free and thus available to all local teens.
● Increase self-esteem and confidence in our junior high teens, getting them ready for high school.
● Bring new life experiences and coping skills to our local teens.
● Continue integrating with additional agencies to better serve the needs of our teens.

Alive Center Program Delivery Outputs:

● Achieve 14,000 teen visits to Alive Naperville, Aurora & Hanover Park
● Provide over 125 mentoring hours
● Provide over 200 tutoring sessions
● Introduce STEM to 100 girls and 150 minority and/or low-income youth
● Increase number of STEM programs to 12

Alive Center 2022 Outcome Goals:

● At least 50% of teens will report increased self-confidence
● At least 50% of teens will report an increased sense of belonging
● At least 50% of teens will report increased Aliveness/Passion
● At least 50% of teens will report an increased ability to cope with stress
● At least 50% of Teen Advisory Board members will report increased leadership skills

2022 Outcomes: (all results represent an average of all program sites)

● 76.5% of teens report increased self-confidence
● 59.5% of teens report an increased sense of belonging
● 61.5% of teens report increased Aliveness/Passion
● 56% of teens report an increased ability to cope with stress
● 68% of Teen Advisory Board members report increased leadership skills

We are honored and thrilled to be one of the first teen centers in the nation that is serving both junior high and high schoolers, privileged and at-risk, through a peer mentoring model. High schoolers lead and create all of our teen programs. It is a powerful peer model of teens helping teens where they all become empowered in the process. Our teen leads are learning early in life that they can make a difference along with learning valuable business and life skills. The younger teens and tweens they are serving are lifted up through our TLTD programs and will grow up to be the future leaders of Alive. Our program also keeps teens off the streets and out of trouble while helping them to learn, lead, create, innovate, build resiliency skills, and discover who they are and find that critical purpose in life... What makes them come alive!

Alive opened two satellite locations, leveraging free spaces from other organizations. Aurora in 2019 and Hanover Park in 2022. We plan to continue to open more to help empower more kids!

Alive serves teens and tweens who are interested in connecting with what makes them come alive, building leadership skills, increasing their health and well-being, and having a stronger sense of community and belonging. Our teen initiated Drop-In programs serve junior high and high school students living in the cities of Naperville, Aurora, and surrounding areas. All tweens and teens are welcome. Our convenient location allows most of our teens to walk to us straight from school or the bus. In addition to scheduled programming, the Alive Center is open for drop-in hours every week day from 3pm to 6 or 7pm during the school year and from 12 to 5 pm each week day during the summer.

Approximately 60% of our drop-in teens come from single parent families, 50% have a disability of some kind (including ADD, ADHD, autism, and mood disorders), and 33% come from families below the Median Family Income of DuPage County. As well, 15-30% of our drop-in kids are African Americans.

Teen-Led, Teen-Driven TLTD TM
Alive’s Teen Initiated Drop-In programs are innovative Teen-Led, Teen-Driven (TLTDTM) programs that provide teens with support and a space to innovate and lead while empowering younger teens and tweens in the process. Alive believes engaging youth in the solution to today’s challenges is critical to our future success:
• Teens have the ability to lead and innovate.
• Teens relate well with other teens (peer programs).
• Teen mentoring/peer programs increases community connection which is healthy for all teen risk factors.
• Teens bring fresh perspectives to community issues.
• Teens teach us about new technologies.
• A ‘teens-helping-teen’s peer model enables both sides to learn valuable skills, gain new experiences, and build relationships leading to more empowered, resilient teens.

Our Teen Initiated Drop-In programs include:

● Free after school drop-in hours providing local teens with a safe after school alternative. This is especially popular with teens whose parents work and those with special needs. Kids make new friends at our Drop-in Hours. The program includes:
o Complimentary tutoring.
o A mentoring program which provides our younger teens with older teen mentors.
o Clubs such as Girl Empowerment, Debate and Poetry that meet during our drop-in hours to provide our teens with an opportunity to share and learn life skills.
o An art room with projects and unstructured art time.
o Board games, video games, snacks, and a large space to play ping pong, bags, etc.

● STEM programs in our Alive Innovation Lab to get more kids interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) at a young age and to address the current STEM skills gap- such as Girls Who Code, Computer Science Club, Science Exploration Club, and Robotics.

● Life Skill Classes such as meditation, healthy cooking, mindful art, fitness, self-esteem workshops, career development, physical fitness and more.

● Leadership and innovation opportunities for old

In one year the Alive Center is currently doing:

- 3500+ kids reached a year
- 50+ Teen-Led, Teen-Driven programs a year
- 12,000 Teen Visits
- 1,300+ Teens a year served
- 250+ Mentoring hours
- 600+ Tutoring sessions
- 20 STEM programs impacting over 1700 kids, 145 which were African American
- Increased Alive teen self-confidence by 69%
- Increased Alive teen sense of belonging by 82%