Vision:

The C. Waldo Scott Center, the Doris Miller Recreation Center, the Pearl Bailey Library, the YWCA Virginia Peninsula, and the Downing Gross Cultural Arts Center, working together, will provide an attractive, safe, strong, and stable place where people are proud to live and thrive.

Mission:

To enhance the quality  and safety for the youth and the community by collaborating to provide education, recreation, information services, leadership skills, cultural, and performing arts year-rounf, which are accessible to all community residents.  

Our youth of the Southeast Community need to be involved in positive experiences, which will enhance their developmental assets and reduce their chances of engaging in high risk behaviors (crime, drugs, teen pregnancy). The Youth Leadership Program enhances the following assets to include values, social competence, support from adults, positive identity, empowerment, constructive use of time, and boundaries and expectations. Developmental assets are considered by child experts as the building blocks of healthy development and are needed to help children grow up healthy, caring and responsible.

Under the WAA Youth Leadership program, 20 community youths (middle and high school) are given service learning experiences at one of the WAA agencies. They are requested to provide a minimum of 12 volunteer hours per week for an eight (8) week period during the summer. As a result of such, they are eligible to receive a weekly stipend ($25). During the summer of 2009, the Youth Leaders provided an accumulation of 2,600 volunteer hours. During the summer of 2008, the Youth Leaders provided 2,690 volunteer hours.

One outstanding example of success in this program is Katherine Diaz. Miss Diaz participated in the 2008 Wickham Avenue Alliance Youth Leadership Program and served as Vice President of Pearl Bailey Library’s Teen Advisory Committee in 2009. She then went on to be named the Mayor’s Youth Citizen of the Year in 2009. Her growth is an example of what youth can do given the opportunity.

For the summer of 2010, the Wickham Avenue Alliance plans to select 20 youth leaders, through an application process, to provide service learning at each of the five Alliance sites. The selected youth, from the Southeast community, will receive leadership and employment readiness training from skilled youth development personnel. The primary objective is for the Youth Leaders to serve as positive role models to their peers and be responsible for assisting staff with summer program activities during the eight week program. They will receive a stipend along with the job experience. Additionally, the Alliance will serve about 150 youth with community activities and outings over the summer. These programs will be safe, supervised, and fun and expose the students to a broader world perspective.

It is the hope of the Wickham Avenue Alliance that you will vote for our community youth to provide them with the chance to be involved in a positive life-enhancing opportunity. The assistance and encouragement of the public and the funding for our program will help the youth look beyond the challenges in their community, which often engulf their peers.