Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 4
Four is to consider and take appropriate action on request to present a check to american youth works from the second annual sheriff's office kick 4 charity kick ball event -- kick ball open.
morning.
>> good morning.
>> I'm deputy vince young with the sheriff's office.
to my right is nicole durant with the sheriff's office.
margie (indiscernible) with american youth works.
>> can you speak directly -- turn that microphone towards you?
>> sure.
>> thank you.
>> as you just previously have seen, the sheriff's office -- the sheriff and the sheriff's office is committed to community services.
we host an -- annually we host a kick ball tournament.
proceeds from that tournament we take and we donate to worthy organizations that invest back into our youth.
this year we selected american youth works to make that donation to.
the community is very important.
our children is very important.
how we raise them and bring them up speaks volumes about us as a society.
american youth works does an excellent job with, one, educating our kids.
and two, providing them with marketable skills that they can go out, invest back into the community.
and if you don't mind, I would like for mr. Smith to give you a little bit about american youth works.
>> all right.
thank you.
well, my name is park smith.
I'm with american youth works.
I'm lucky to have our board chair marjorie with us.
I want to thank you guys on the court for all of your support over the years.
we've had a 35 year partnership.
we became incorporated 30 years ago, so we're having our 30th anniversary on October the 1st and we want to invite you guys all out to our south campus at 1901 east ben white boulevard to enjoy that 30th anniversary with people all over the county who have been engaged in helping our young people move from what we consider at risk to what we say are at promise.
these guys are at promise of success and it's a really important endeavor that you guys are gauged in with us and in partnership on.
we want to appreciate the sheriff's department, nicole and the sheriff vincent galloway and sheriff hamilton for spoargt the work we do at american youth works.
kick ball is a great way to do it.
we had people have a lot of fun, but also brought awareness of the issues of high dropout rates we have in our area, the high unemployment for youth.
and these are critical factors that american youth works is working hard everyday to address.
these types of fund-raising events are critical at this time because we're losing federal funding on that level.
education and jobs training, workforce development are taking pretty significant hits.
and here at the local level, city of Austin has changed its sort of health and human services funding priorities and that has left us in a state of where there's high needs folks in the community that need housing and other things that the city is addressing and they've put their focus on that.
but it leaves programs like ours really appreciative of the extra fund-raising benefits that individuals do for us.
I did want to say a few things about american youth works and what it is that we're doing.
we engage young people age 17 to 24 in -- get them back involved in their high school diploma.
they may have left high school and need a second chance at their education.
they've decided for some reason being a dropout isn't cutting it.
it's time to get back to school.
they come to us and we engage them in a dynamic education model that also involves service learning projects.
and jobs training.
so many of our young people, over 200 are engaged in the service learning projects every year.
and we work in the parks, we're building Travis County ranger houses.
we've built tons of trails and done habitat restoration work that would otherwise be just done by -- done by private individuals, but we're using those services and those things that you guys have to do in a way that actually trains the young people to be productive citizens in our community.
so we're trying to divert them from the pathway to prisons and poverty and get them on track with jobs skills that will help them be sustainable, take care of their families and their children.
and we try to remove all those hurdles to their education while they're with us at american youth works.
we have a child care program where a teen mother can bring her baby to class with her.
and until that baby becomes a toddler.
and then moves into a head start program that we're partnering with other agency child inc.
with.
so that the children can get an early start on education while their mothers continue their education and their fathers continue their education through our school.
have a job where they go to school that they can then move on and do -- take care of their family.
you've got to have money to take care of your family and that's how many of our young people have decided to return to school is through the jobs training programs that we have, and the scholarship opportunities that we have to move them on to college.
so it's an amazing program, but it wouldn't work without the support of Travis County and the sheriff's office and all the individuals around the community who are helping plug in and raise funds and do the great things it takes to fund this great work.
>> June 25th we did this, but we had a blast.
we had 16, maybe 18 teams. And we were able to raise from that tournament $1,688..02 that we would like to present to american youth works.
>> thank you so much.
>> and we would love to get a picture of you guys with our big check.
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