local RESOURCES

Beyond Soccer is a sports-based, youth development organization that uses soccer to engage Lawrence youth and connect them to new experiences, on-and-off-the-field, that build confidence and create opportunities for leadership, healthy living & academic achievement.

​

The Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence provides a safe, after-school haven for more than 4,000 youths to come for nightly meals, homework help, fitness and nutrition programs, college and career planning, and lasting personal relationships.

​

3 Core Program Areas

• Character & Leadership

• Academic Success

• Healthy Lifestyles

​​

Every young person, regardless of their circumstances or history, has tremendous potential to achieve great things. Family Services’ Youth Development Programs help young people achieve their full potential by helping them harness their inherent strengths and abilities.

​

Our current youth development programs include:

• ARISE is one of our newest programs. Details coming soon!

• ESTEEM is a voluntary program for youth involved with the juvenile justice system. Through active engagement in self improvement through individual and group activities, ESTEEM helps young people rediscover their potential.

• Big Friends Little Friends is a community based mentoring program matching children with positive adult role models who provide friendship, guidance, and the motivation to succeed in school and in life.

• Stand & Deliver provides one-to-one academic mentoring in partnership with local businesses to help students graduate high school and move onto future academic and career success.

• Success Mentors is a collaboration with the Mass Mentoring Partnership to implement an evidence-based model that targets chronically absent students and connects them with a school-based mentor in the communities of Lawrence, Springfield and Holyoke.

• PREP is a curriculum-based school program for 12-19 year old youth that teaches abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. PREP also covers subjects such as financial literacy, career success, and healthy relationships.

​​

The Groundwork Lawrence Green Team is a year-round program that offers part-time, paid positions for 40 Lawrence high school aged students each year to help learn about and lead local environmental and healthy community initiatives, grow food, conduct research, raise awareness, challenge their peers to do community service, and participate in hands-on improvement projects throughout the City of Lawrence. The program is intended to promote the protection and restoration of Lawrence’s critical ecological systems, natural resources, and public health by engaging teens in advocacy and service-learning efforts focused on the community's parks, gardens, waterways, and vacant open spaces.

​​

Movement City is a safe space for creative young people (ages 10 to 18) to explore and develop their talents and passions with a network of like-minded peers and supportive adult mentors.  Movement City members engage in digital, performance, and visual arts, as well as technology, academic support, civic engagement and leadership development activities.

​

Suenos Basketball Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers year round programs for young children ages 6 to 18 with emotional, academic, and athletic support. The primary goal is to develop their mindset through basketball, therefore for them to understand the importance of being young people of character, hardworking students, and leaders of their community.

​

YDO students, through our programs & collaborations, are able to participate in out-of-school enrichment spanning STEM disciplines, the performing & fine Arts, and leadership development.