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Orange County Youth Commission <br />Santa Ana, California <br />Academic support. <br />The after-school boxing club program is designed to provide academic support, which is <br />a precursor to job and career success. Our after school boxing club is unique in that it <br />serves as an incentive for Santa Ana inner city at-risk youth, to meet higher academic <br />standards and it serves as a tool to instruct these youth in necessary character <br />development that will ensure academic and career success. This program will increase <br />commitment to academic achievement, thus raise, maintain or exceed a GPA of 2.0 with <br />a higher GPA the client's literacy and numeracy scores will increase. Most of our present <br />boxing team members have raised their GPA from a low 1.0 to 2.0 and higher. We have <br />not only seen increase GPA level, but also discontinued gang membership, appropriate <br />attitude change, improved attendance and personal initiative. <br />Employment Mentoring Program <br />Our mentoring program geared to assist the older aged WIA clients with employment <br />preparation, job shadowing, employment on-site internships and goal setting fits right in <br />line with the goals that the WIA Program has. A new employee, yet to be named will <br />administrate the program, recruiting adult mentors to commit to sharing their career, <br />taking students on job shadowing experiences, internship opportunities, discussing life <br />skills with the teens, helping them set personal goals and monitoring their progress <br />towards meeting their short term employment goals. Should individual mentors not be in <br />the position to provide the internship opportunity we will seek other employers to provide <br />the internship experience. We provide stipends for the work experience or internship and <br />or special services if books and other study materials are needed, uniforms or clothing, as <br />well as bus passes, through the WIA Program. <br />Mentoring. <br />In conjunction with and additionally to the new mentoring program for WIA Clients, all <br />boxers will continue to have regular presentations by community members. About once a <br />month, a local business person, community worker or leader gives an hour of their time <br />to speak to the youth about how they achieved their career or job goals. These individuals <br />include entrepreneurs, craftsmen, police officers, firefighters, attorneys, judges, <br />engineers, etc. During the past year, we have had guest speakers including men that own <br />their own businesses, pastors of local churches and men speaking to the boys about <br />abstinence. Chicanito Hernandez often stops in the club to speak to the young people and <br />telling them about his life as a famous boxer. <br />We ask them to share with the youth about how they first had the dream of their chosen <br />profession, then how they strategized to meet that goal, what community resources they <br />tapped into and how they overcame barriers to reach that goal. They share what lessons <br />they learned and what they would do differently if they could. We then ask these <br />individuals to allow interested youth to contact them for advice as they pursue a <br />particular job or career goal. Thus, the mentoring relationship is born. Those youth who <br />have graduated from the program are welcome to return to listen to these presentations, <br />as well, to gain additional motivation and insight. This is one avenue we intend to use to <br />guide our youth to gain career awareness; make career decisions and plans; and <br />understand market needs, trends and opportunities. <br />8 EXHIBIT A