CSC Youth Center

The Youth Center at Chinatown Service Center (CSC) provides a safe and friendly environment for elementary and middle school students to develop healthily - cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Throughout the year, parents enroll their children into CSC Youth Center’s afterschool program, seeking for tutoring services to help increase their child(ren)’s academic grades. Occasionally, students enter the youth center with below-average academic grades, but also lacking self-confidence, appropriate social skills, and emotional regulation. Since most of the students come from a family of newly-arrived immigrants who are unfamiliar with the English language, they are not receiving the help they need to complete their homework. As a result, this leads to low self-esteem and poor academic grades. CSC’s Youth Center becomes the main source of academic assistance for these children.

Through this program, we would provide tutoring services to the students and ensure that they complete their homework in a timely manner. We strive to motivate students to stay on task and to finish their homework. Upon completion of their homework, we provide extra work to help students either catch up or to become ahead of the materials provided by their school. By doing so, we implement California’s common core standards into our curriculums on the subjects of English, Math, Science, and History. For middle school students who are in preparation of taking the ELD (English Language Development) exam, we provide a curriculum focused around the test (including reading comprehension, grammar, inferences, etc.) to ensure that they will be confident and prepared when it is time to take the test.

By the end of the academic year, many of the students that attended CSC’s Youth Center showed tremendous improvements. One of the students arrived to CSC seeking for help to prepare for the ELD exam. For the first couple of months, this youth would not speak to any peers in the youth center, and barely spoke to the tutors. Over time, she gradually opened up to the tutors and spoke to them with more confidence. After months of preparation for the ELD exam, she finally passed the exam and was so proud of herself. From the moment she set foot into the youth center to the day she passed her ELD exam, she has transformed into a confident and happy individual.

The Youth Center is not just an afterschool program that provides tutoring to students with their academic work. We observe every student carefully in terms of their social behavior and self-esteem. Our goal is to build a firm foundation so that the students become successful in life. We want every student who arrived in the Youth Center to leave as a confident and successful individual.

With such an important program, there would always be necessities. We are currently seeking for $15,000 to fund our program for the upcoming school year. Any amount is greatly appreciated, as no amount is ever too small when it comes to the well-being of a child. The funds will be used to hire more tutors to assist in the afterschool program and to purchase materials that would benefit our students to strive for academic achievements. Your small donation could make a huge impact on these children. Thank You!