Youth Entity
Brooke Casillas Photo
These days, a kid at a laptop is a familiar sight. But at YouthEntity, one might be the tutor for an adult who needs a "technical updating."
How did a modest effort, begun in 2001, to supply refurbished computers to kids who needed them, turn into the much broader youth program that was awarded the 2007 Penrose Cup for the Colorado nonprofit of the year? It started when the current
director, Kirsten McDaniel, joined the board of the Carbondale-based Computers for Kids in 2005.
“I had a goal of trying to provide experiential learning for kids in whatever they needed, so I developed new strategies for them,” says McDaniel. “I wanted to build the kids’ business experience and develop their financial knowledge and technical skills using an authentic learning model.” Bob Elmore and Bob Rankin, members of a Computers for Kids board that once included Sally Mencimer and Michael Fain, made her their director. Their mission was to help bridge the digital divide in the Roaring Fork Valley, and they recently renamed themselves YouthEntity to reflect their larger involvement.
“We diagnosed some important gaps in areas where kids needed help,” says McDaniel, whose background is in industrial marketing. She adopted a problem-solving approach, formed youth consulting teams and found customers for them so YE could “provide kids with experience in the workplace when they’re young.” Volunteer coaches donate several hours a week for eight months, working with 150 to 200 kids per year in the consulting program in a variety of fields. “One of our first projects was for the Garfield County Library, which was trying to attract more kids,” says McDaniel.
YouthEntity gets paid consulting fees and the kids get five credits for participating. “It’s a tremendous gift clients are giving back to kids by employing us as consultants,” notes McDaniel. All the income generated by YE, about 20 to 30 percent of their annual revenue, supplements donations and grants, such as the $50,000 from the El Pomar Foundation that came with their Penrose Cup.
That money supports a myriad of other projects, including their initial mandate of refurbishing computers, with kids doing the work and learning how to build computers in the process. YE’s kid-run website-design business, Web Entity, opens in February of 2010. And they can learn to design computer games and apprentice for successful, state-of-the-art video producers (beheardtv.com and True Media Foundation) housed on campus.
That campus is part of the old Carbondale Middle School. A retrofitted cafeteria houses the computer-rebuilding center in a big room that would put Circuit City to shame. And they’ve completely redone the old library, outfitting it with slick, modern computers and flat-screen monitors, an honor-system snack bar called Gigabytes, a Brain Bar for one-on-one, kid-provided tutoring for adults who need “technical updating” (at $20 an hour) and the kind of stylish Danish modern interior and kids conference rooms that would look good at the Aspen Institute.
In short, it’s a welcoming, comfortable space with real things to do. This is the third year of YE’s Investment Challenge program, founded when they determined that, “Lots of kids are financially very undereducated,” says McDaniel. And they don’t always learn good lessons at home. Kids are incentivized by sharing in the profits they make in real-time, real-money stock-market accounts that are provided by donations to YE. Those who test well also earn a small cash bonus and the possibility of a job at the YouthEntity Alpine Bank, created in cooperation with Alpine Bank and opening at the YE center in the winter of 2010. They also have a lot of interest from the kids in a culinary program starting in February 2010 in the Glenwood Springs High School cafeteria kitchen.
Spend enough time around kids and you may believe that there’s hope for the world. Spend enough time around YouthEntity, and you may believe that it transcends being about kids and becomes more of a template for how it would be nice to see entire communities function.
YOUTH IS SERVED
The Roaring Fork Valley boasts numerous other nonprofits working to better the lives of young people, including the following.
- Tomorrow’s Voices brings civics education back into the classroom for the youth of the Roaring Fork Valley. tomorrowsvoices.org
- The Buddy Program offers buddies/mentors to youths valley-wide (320-plus in 2009), presents scholarships in local athletics and manages Aspen Youth Experience programs. buddyprogram.org
- Aspen Education Foundation promotes excellence in public education by raising money for the Aspen School District. aspenaef.org
- Youth Zone helps strengthen communities through happier, healthier families and safer neighborhoods from Rifle to Aspen. youthzone.com
- Aspen Youth Center provides after-school, summer and outreach programs to Roaring Fork Valley youth grades 4–12, reaching 1,000-plus kids each year. aspenyouthcenter.org
- Aspen Camp offers programs to deaf and hard-of-hearing children and fosters community connections by opening its camp to the surrounding area. aspencamp.org
