Dr. Kemp gives Youth Life students and families a reason to smile.

Dr. Phillip Kemp, DDS, Brentwood, Tennessee dentist at Kemp Dental, will be performing free dental care to our students and their families at YLLC-Kirkpatrick on April 21st through his Hope Smiles initiative.  Hope Smiles, a nonprofit, Christian organization, aims to “help individuals receive restorative and cosmetic dental work at little or no cost, made possible by community and private financial support, donated materials and volunteer dental professionals.”  Hope Smiles also gives dental students, soon to be dentists, the opportunity to work with his team.  Although this care will be provided, he hopes that his efforts will reflect on a focus for restoration and love of students and families.

Knowing Yolanda Shields,  CEO of Youth Life Learning Centers, for over fifteen years, first as a patient and now as a friend, Dr. Kemp saw a need among YLLC’s family members and students.  Taking notice of what our organization provides, he believes that we lead hope and change within the at-risk environments served at Youth Life.

“Dentistry is an unmet need in our country,” says Dr. Kemp. “Unfortunately, there are so many who experience pain and discomfort with no hope for relief. Hope Smiles is our small part of bringing a glimpse of hope to a situation that can often feel hopeless. …The need is so great. One of the number one reasons that kids miss school is due to dental pain. This breaks my heart and should not be the case. Also, not to be able to confidently smile significantly effects one’s self-esteem and can also prevent someone from securing employment. The name, Hope Smiles, was chosen because of just like it sounds, Hope Smiles. When someone has hope, he or she cannot help but smile. We love being able to help people smile. We love to share hope.”

When he reflects on lives changed, Dr. Kemp recalls a particular girl, who at one time struggled with an eating disorder.  She felt that God was able to pull her out of these times to find a new sense of peace and love.  Each time the girl looked in the mirror, however, she was reminded of this past struggle by the look of her teeth, which had eroded away.  After transforming her teeth, her new smile brought not only a physical healing, but also an emotional one by erasing a painful reminder.

Dr. Kemp wants to tell all of the students served at Youth Life Learning Centers to never give up and trust God in all that they do.  The staff and YLLC students and families members would like to give him a special thank you for his efforts that will not just provide smiles but a sense of restoration, hope and love.

YLLC students take on learning projects in celebration of Black History Month

During Black History Month, Youth Life students, most of whom are African-American, were eager to learn about their history.  The different centers set up various events throughout the month that they would like to share with Youth Life supporters.

• History of Hip-Hop at Belmont University was a blast last night, as forty YLLC students were in attendance.  The event included freestyle cypher, “A7” on the wheels of steel, graffiti designs, b-boy showcase, a performance by the Children of 18th Avenue Family Enrichment Center, and more.
• YLLC-Kirkpatrick took a field trip to meet up with YLLC-Memphis.  Together, the two groups went on a field trip to The National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel and the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• YLLC-Riverchase teen students collaborated to create one poster board of important, historical and modern African-American figures including Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the Super Soaker!
• The older students at YLLC-Easley were given options to either (a) do a personal outline of their family history, (b) do a timeline of the Civil Rights Movement, or (c) do a biography on a famous, historical African-American figure
• At YLLC-West the 2nd through 4th grade class did collages on a subject of their choosing.  Below is a picture of Diana Ochoa, who chose to do her project on The Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to sit in the back of a bus.  Today, Barack Obama is the first African-American to hold the title of President of the United States of America.  We hope YLLC students not only learned about figures from the past and African-American history, but we also want them to know that even in their at-risk communities, they have the same potential as these role models if they stay focused, study hard and stay in school.

To see  our calendar for Black History Month, visit the events page at www.yllc.org.

Visit our Facebook page to see more pictures from how we celebrated Black History Month.

Deja West is quick to help her YLLC peers

Deja West, fifth grader at Keystone Elementary School, has been attending YLLC-Memphis after school in the fall of 2010.  Since then, her YLLC teacher has seen a big improvement in her grades and attitude.  Deja is many times the first to finish homework and start cleaning up.

Deja West, pictured second from the right

Not only is she a leader, but Deja is also “quick to help,” says her YLLC teacher.   In fact, some of the younger YLLC-Memphis students were struggling with spelling, so Deja took it upon herself to create spelling pretests for these students and taught them to use helpful tricks for memorization like acronyms.  With her caring efforts, these younger students seem to be doing a lot better on their spelling tests according to her YLLC teacher.

Her teacher believes it is because of the mentoring that Youth Life provides that she is able to mimic that positive, helpful attitude and get excited about the program of which she is apart.  She loves the Fun Fridays, daily Bible devotions, community events and homework help that Youth Life has to offer.  We are so thrilled that Deja is as excited to be apart of Youth Life as we are to have her in our program.

A decade of dedication and improvement means a bright future ahead

As we head into our eleventh year of programming, we look back on the past ten.  When we started with only one center in 2001, we were serving about 30 at-risk students in all of Tennessee.  With only a staff of three, we knew that our foundation and mission would grow, and it did.  Those YLLC students we served in 2001 are now in high school, and YLLC has over 15 staff members serving over 300 students at six centers in several cities.

“We are building a rich heritage that is full of milestones, both as an organization and in the lives of YLLC students and families,” says Lindsay Daly, Youth Life’s program director.

With our outreach and perseverance, we have gained the support of sponsors including Miller & Martin, PLLC, Pepsi, Dollar General, United Way, Catepillar Insurance, Bridgestone Americas, HCA/Tri-Star, Skanska, Bone McAllester Norton, PLLC, Lipscomb S.A.L.T., The Bun Company, Ingram, Urban Youth Initiative, First Tennessee bank, Community Health Systems, Inc., Metro Arts, Lee Company, and more.  We have partnered with N.A.Z.A., Martha O’Bryan, St. Luke’s Community House, Life Church Memphis, Lipscomb S.A.L.T., Belmont University’s service learning department, Edgehill Community Center, My Own Backyard, SLAM, and more.

Over the years, we have increased our board members, developed an internship program, held annual events, made connections with various churches and schools, and received media attention.  In the past year alone, we have quadrupled Twitter followers, tripled Facebook fans, quadrupled our general e-blast outreach, expanded our e-blasts with targeted audiences, started using a cohesive, clean, communicative brand, added a personable, story-telling approach with various YLLC highlights, utilized a short-code texting system, written updated, weekly blog pieces, and launched a branded, improved website.  Generous gifts, like that of Mr. Gerald Grubb, have allowed us to take a tremendous stride in closing the achievement gap for the at-risk youth we serve.

Our statistics have shown that students are continuing to improve with our programming.  How do you wish to see our impact over these next ten years?  Write a comment below to share with us where you hope to see our students, their families, our agency, and our mission by 2021.