FY25:

After planning, coordinating and having meetings with our county middle schools and their principals and staff, we were able to facilitate the Project AIM curriculum to all 8th grade students at Westmar, Washington, and Braddock Middle Schools during this time period. We were able to implement the program at Westmar, Washington and Braddock Middle Schools during their Physical Education class this half of the year. At Westmar, the students were divided up into two classes (one A-Day) and (one B-day). With the larger middles schools (Washington and Braddock), the students were divided up into three different classes on A and B Day, giving us a total of 6 classes for each of those schools. We had more facilitators at the larger schools in order to accommodate all of the students and classes. During the course of the entire school year, we were able to reach all 8th grade classes in all of the middle schools in Allegany County. A total of 554 participants are at-risk of entering the juvenile justice system who were alternatively served by community-based options.

FY22:

Highlights from Project AIM: There are many highlights with the youth that participated in Project AIM during the original class that was held and with the adventure camp. Some of the highlights from the original class consisted of one student who was receiving a referral every week in school reporting that he had been three weeks without receiving one. He said that was a huge accomplishment for himself. We also had two youth who joined the National Honor Society at school, one youth that joined the local fire department as a cadet, one student whose grades went to all A’s, and one girl who came with her hair in her face the first day and would not talk with anyone else, by the end of the class she had enough confidence and self-esteem that she spoke at their graduation ceremony. There were many highlights from the adventure camp as well. The adventure camp gave youth in the area as well as the outlying areas a chance to participate in activities that they may have not had the opportunity to do. The majority of the kids reported that the adventure camp was the best vacation that they’ve had. Another report from several youth was that they made new friendships with people that they had only met on this trip. Several of the youth were amazed by the locations and the activities which prompted them to have questions about other theme parks, vacation destinations, etc. This tied in with being able to make good decisions and how those decisions affect where you go in life. We had four youth from the first class that was held come back for the adventure camp as junior leaders to assist the facilitators with the Project AIM curriculum. These four youth assisted with engaging other youth while on the trips and with their activities. There were several observations and reports made to staff while on the trips. While at the Wisp, one of our youth noticed a family who could not participate in the activities due to improper shoes. She immediately tried to help this girl find shoes. The father of this child was deaf but that communication barrier did not stop our youth from helping her to locate shoes to participate in the activity. Two of our youth at Urban Air were kind enough to interact with families with toddlers who were not part of our group. The parent and grandparent noticed this and commended the boys for being kind to their toddlers. A young man in the camp made a bad decision early in the week and could’ve easily lied but he chose not to. Instead he took responsibility and he fixed the situation. Several of the staff that went on the trips were Project YES coordinators. By engaging these Project YES coordinators from schools in the outlying areas, we were able to connect students who will be attending their perspective schools next year with them and the services they provide. We received a compliment from the Bollman bus fleet owner who was extremely complementary of our staff and the kids during the trips. He stated he was very impressed by their behavior and the curriculums that were presented to the youth. One of the negative situations that happened during the camp ended up creating positive outcomes. There was a young man at DelGrosso‘s who had shoplifted from their souvenir store. Staff was not aware that this had happened. One of our original graduates, who was a junior leader during this trip, could not consciously get on the bus knowing that the youth had shoplifted. He quickly made the good decision to inform staff of the incident. Staff quickly took action and pulled the boy aside to discuss the situation while protecting the youth that came forth with the information. Staff took the boy who shoplifted back to the store and had the boy explain to the store manager what he had done. Even though he had shoplifted, the store manager stated he was not going to contact law-enforcement, even though he could. Staff then had the boy sit with them on the bus and discuss his decisions and the consequences of his actions. Staff came to the realization that we may not be able to influence everyone, but we were proud of the boy who had graduated in the original Project AIM class, who came forth and made a good decision to let us know about the incident.  And our hope for the boy, who shoplifted, is that he realizes what the consequences of his actions could have been, and he will remember this incident in the future.  For the staff and youth combined it was a great week to see our local youth become kids again and not have to face the worries of what’s going on around them. We hope to be able to continue this in the future for our community.

FY25:

A strong partnership is key to the success of working with students in the public schools. The administration and physical education teachers at all of the middle schools were so supportive in implementing the program. The teachers had great communication skills with our facilitator’s and engaged the classes in discussions based on the lesson of the day. All the faculty and staff were very supportive of the curriculum and are hoping we can continue this with their students each year. One slight change we may need to consider in the future is starting the curriculum a little earlier in the school year and not so close to the major holidays at the end of the year due to school events that happen. The Project AIM curriculum gave each of the youth a chance to examine the decisions that they currently make and how that can affect their future both in a positive and negative way. It opened up a lot of discussion between the facilitators and the youth about how their actions and decisions can affect each of their lives. Each of the youth in school, upon completion of the program, were given a portfolio of the business cards they designed, a letter of recommendation for the career they chose to focus on, along with a certificate of completion and all the work that they did in each activity throughout Project AIM.

FY25:

At Westmar Middle School, we provided the Project Aim Curriculum to a total of 72 students. The students in the classes seemed to really enjoy the curriculum and were engaged in each of the lessons. At Washington Middle School we provided the curriculum to 142 students; however, we had 3 students that either did not attend the lessons or did not complete any of the work for the curriculum. At Braddock Middle School we provided the curriculum to 155 students; however, again we have 3 students that did not complete the lessons or did not attend class. During graduation students shared their favorite lessons as well as some of the things that they learned about themselves and ways to make better decisions for themselves. Students also really enjoyed the career exploration part of the curriculum and what they could potentially grow up and do as a career.

FY25:

We had students complete a pre-curriculum survey. Daily attendance was provided to us by the physical education teachers to monitor attendance. Our staff monitored each students progress by reviewing their Project Aim workbooks to make sure their exercises were being completed for each lesson.