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Partner Cities & Agencies

Aspen Youth Experience is proud of its partnerships with youth organizations whose primary clients are underserved and at-risk youth and families. Our programs and services offer youth an opportunity to experience the challenging and healing properties within a loving and supportive environment. AYE’s programs offer youth participants the opportunity to examine their past experiences in an attempt to unearth roadblocks that might prevent future personal growth and success. 
 
A number of AYE partners are charter and alternative schools, mandated to provide services to youth with significant academic, emotional and social challenges. Others are full-service community agencies offering child-care, pre-school and after-school programs as well as health care, food and clothing distribution and financial assistance.
 
Currently, AYE’s active agencies are located within five cities/regions: 
  • New York City
  • Washington DC
  • Chicago
  • Kansas City, MO
  • East Palo Alto, CA
  • Roaring Fork Valley, CO
 
Each partner agency is required to meet the following criteria before sending youth to an AYE program:
  • Geographic location: New York, NY; Washington, DC; Chicago, IL; Kansas City, MO; East Palo Alto, CA; Roaring Fork Valley, CO.
  • Organizational mission and population served: Youth must be at-risk and residing or attending school in an economically underserved community.
  • Group Leaders: Partner organizations must provide an appropriate staff member to attend each program. AYE has a 1:4 ratio of adults to youth.
  • Follow-through: Partner organizations must ensure that a staff member is available to assist youth with the application process and that all documents are submitted completed and according to published deadlines.
  • Follow-up: Partner organizations must ensure that once youth have completed a program, they are encouraged to attend monthly local follow-up life-skills sessions. In some instances, a partner organization will be asked to provide space and resources for follow-up sessions as well as a staff member who serves as Follow-up Facilitator.
  • Program costs: Each partner organization must be financially capable of covering air and ground transportation costs for all youth and staff participants. 
 
EAST PALO ALTO, CA
East Palo Alto Academy - High School http://hs.eastpaloaltoacademy.org
EPA school aims to meet the needs of our students by combining the most successful models of urban school reform, with highly qualified teachers and a curriculum that connects the work of the school to the life of the community.The opportunity to create East Palo Alto Academy: High School was realized when a collaboration was established between Stanford University, Aspire Public Schools and Ravenswood School District. Today East Palo Alto Academy: High School is part of Stanford New School.
 
CHICAGO
North Lawndale College Preparatory High School www.nlcphs.org
The mission of North Lawndale College Preparatory Charter High School (NLCP) is to prepare young people from under-resourced communities for graduation from high school with the academic skills and personal resilience necessary for successful completion of college.
 
Southwest Youth Collaborative www.swyc.org
The Southwest Youth Collaborative has touched the lives of many people in different ways. Cultivating the critical minds and nurturing the tender hearts of young people is of the utmost importance. SWYC’s mission is to unleash the potential of youth from diverse racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds to become actively contributing members of society through initiatives that engage young people in working for a better world. To this end, the programs work to build self-esteem, personal and social growth, cooperation, leadership, cross-cultural understanding, and community awareness.
 
KANSAS CITY
De La Salle Education Center www.delasallecenter.org
De La Salle Education Center, founded in 1971, was the first fully accredited private alternative school in the Kansas City area, and is now the region's only private secular alternative school system educating nearly 500 urban youth daily at three schools. The mission of De La Salle Education Center is to provide an alternative education that improves the rate of student graduation and employability.
 
Operation Breakthrough www.operationbreakthrough.org
The mission of Operation Breakthrough is to help children who are living in poverty develop to their fullest potential by providing them a safe, loving and educational environment. Operation Breakthrough also strives to support and empower the children’s families through advocacy, referral services and emergency aid.
 
Migrant Farmworkers Project www.lawmo.org
Because of the language differences and low education levels, many of migrant farm- workers who live in the greater KC area find it difficult to follow complicated governmental procedures dealing with everything from immigration law to food stamps to driver's license problems. Project staff assists workers with translation and with application for benefits programs and serve as advocates for the workers' rights to assistance. Staff strives not only to resolve the workers' immediate problems, but also to educate them to the legal process, their rights and obligations. Through this program, services are provided to a population that is often invisible and frequently falls between the cracks of conventional assistance.
 
NEW YORK CITY
Camp Interactive www.campinteractive.org
Camp Interactive’s mission is to bridge the digital and leadership divide that plagues our nation’s inner cities by introducing the creative power of technology and the inspiration of the outdoors to underprivileged youth in one program. At Camp Interactive, inner city youth navigate two different adventures—into the wild and onto the Web—and emerge with a sense of innovation, teamwork and confidence that will vault them to the forefront of their generation.
 
Chess-In-The-Schools www.chessintheschools.org
Chess-in-the-Schools is an educational organization dedicated to stimulating and enhancing learning skills by teaching chess to kindergarten through eighth grade children in New York's inner-city public schools, in after-school programs, tournament competitions, and College Bound programs for high school students. Through the mission, Chess-in-the-Schools attendees develop critical thinking skills, build self-esteem, learn discipline, foster positive social skills, motivate academic achievement, and are empowered to become educated
.
East Harlem Urban Center/ Booker T. Washington Learning Center www.bookert.org
The Booker T. Washington Learning Center’s mission is to break the cycle of inadequate education, poverty and despair, which pervades East Harlem, while working to maintain a viable and hopeful community. The Learning Center preserves and strengthens the community of East Harlem-El Barrio by offering educational programs including a certified Pre-School Program, After School Program, Summer Program, Young Adult Program, and Adult Education Program. In addition, the Learning Center offers parents and other adults, computer training, GED and college preparation, as well as family counseling. In all of our programs we focus on character development through a mentoring relationship.
 
WASHINGTON DC
Maya Angelou Public Charter School-Evans Campus
Maya Angelou Public Charter School-Shaw Campus www.seeforever.org
Maya Angelou’s mission is to create learning communities in lower income urban areas where all students, particularly those who have not succeeded in traditional schools, can reach their potential. At Maya Angelou our students develop the academic, social and employment skills that they need to build rewarding lives and promote positive change in their communities.
 
ROARING FORK VALLEY, CO
Roaring Fork School District  www.rfsd..k12.co.us
Basalt Middle & High Schools
Roaring Fork High School & Carbondale Middle
school
Glenwood Springs Middle & High Schools
 
Aspen School District  www.aspenk12.net
 Middle & High Schools
 
Roaring Fork Family Resource Center www.rffrc.com
RFFRC’s mission is to connect families, schools and communities to improve student health and academic achievement.
 
The Buddy Program www.buddyprogram.org
Since 1973 The Buddy Program has been pairing screened and trained adult volunteer mentors with young people, ages 6-18, from Aspen to El Jebel, Colorado. 
 
Youth Zone is a Colorado non-profit dedicated to providing opportunities for youth to be responsible, contributing members of society and working with their families and the community toward this end. Through prevention, advocacy, parent education and direct services, Youth Zone strives to enhance the quality of life in its communities.


Aspen Youth Experience 110 E. Hallam St., Suite 133, Aspen Co 81611 Tel: (970) 925 6671 Fax: (970) 920-1855
Aspen youth Experience is a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization. Federal Tax ID #84-1186989
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