Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Youth After School: The YES Fund Story Episode - 223
The YES Fund supports Manhattan's youth through after-school programming, creating opportunities for young people and strengthening the community since its founding in 1993 following devastating floods.
• YES Fund originated when community leaders recognized that youth lacked meaningful after-school activities
• Annual campaign generates approximately $300,000 for youth programs across Manhattan
• Supports diverse organizations, including the Boys and Girls Club, the Manhattan Arts Center, and sports programs
• K-State education students volunteer with funded organizations, creating a university-community partnership
• Originally housed at the Manhattan Mercury through connections with the McCormick Foundation
• Now operates through the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation, with major donors providing matching funds
• Campaign runs publicly from July through the first Sunday in September
• Organizations rely on YES Funding as part of their annual budgets for sustainability
Support the YES Fund campaign starting July 7th through the first Sunday in September to help strengthen our community by providing engaging activities for Manhattan's youth.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour, as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. Back with the GMCF Community Hour and today we're going to be talking about one of our annual efforts that has been around for really about as long as longer than it's been around, longer than the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation the YES Fund.
Speaker 2:It has. It's been, I think, 93. 93.
Speaker 1:That was kind of one of those things that came into play following the flood in 93. That's right. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies thinking about that because about this time, you know, 32 years ago we were challenged.
Speaker 2:Yep, there have been a lot of kids that have certainly been supported in after-school programs Because of this. There's quite the story behind all of it and in past years we'd have Mike Holden come in and kind of tell the story about the history of this and how it all got started. And now Debbie, taking over Mike's role as Dean of Education out of Kansas State, she's kind of followed in his footsteps and been really good about helping go through the grant process and reviewing all the grants from the organizations for sure. So we appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Her name is Debbie Mercer and she's joining us via Zoom. Good morning, Debbie.
Speaker 3:Well, good morning, and walking in Mike Holan's footsteps is a big job, and I appreciate his mentorship and his belief in this community, which was the founding of the YES Fund.
Speaker 1:How did that get started actually?
Speaker 3:How did that get started actually? So a group of very dedicated Manhattan community members noticed that there weren't a lot of things for youth to do after school and they were dealing with some behaviors that we wouldn't want to necessarily see from youth, as they were trying to come up with their own things to do and youth didn't feel like they had outlets. And this group of community leaders, very forward thinking, said we need to address this now so that we have a strong and vibrant community, and so that was really the foundation of the YES Fund, that they wanted youth to be engaged in the community. So they started looking at what things would students and youth be interested in doing and how could we provide the infrastructure within the Manhattan community to allow those activities to take place.
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk a bit about the YES Fund and some of the positive impacts that they've made on the youth and community and there are a lot of examples, Debbie.
Speaker 3:There absolutely are After school programming in a variety of areas and fields, from the Boys and Girls Club of Manhattan to the Flint Hills Volunteer Center. Lots of sports related activities first tee, girls on the run, basketball, swimming, a strong connection to the school system and the their foundation to be able to provide things through the Manhattan Ogden Public Schools Foundation to places like Pawnee Mental Health and the House Cafe in Ogden Wonder Workshop. So a variety of organizations that are now mainstays in the Manhattan community benefit from YES Funding.
Speaker 1:Vern. Let's talk a bit about the YES Fund and how it exists within the framework of the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when this first got started, ed Seaton and the Manhattan Mercury was kind of the location where it operated out of, and that was because of a connection that he had with McCormick Foundation out of Chicago. And that was a connection because of a general that had been here at Fort Riley in the process who happened to be on the McCormick Foundation board. And so when there was a need for funds for after-school programs, like Debbie said, they had done a survey and kids didn't feel like they had enough to do after school and so there was a grant made to the community and then they looked towards individuals in the organization to match this, and so the McCormick Foundation had put up some money I don't know what the original amount was, but it was in the $75,000 to $100,000 range in the latter years and so they put up that money, some locals matched it and then the community members you know gave to it and all of a sudden, before you know it, you get several hundred thousand dollars to do some great things for after school programs.
Speaker 1:So you know, Debbie, this is one of the great examples in our community. And you know, when I lived here, prior to this, the establishment of the yes Fund, I had this mindset that if you weren't part of Fort Riley, if you weren't part of Kansas State University, there really wasn't a whole lot for you. And as a parent of a young child, just a few years later that became more and more apparent that there just didn't seem to be enough opportunities for youth. And the YES Fund seems to have discovered hey, there's not enough opportunities for youth. And what's it like to go through that process? You know, you help create things, like you said. For example, you know I'm just going to say one here Boys and Girls Club. How do you come to the determination within your, I suppose, your board or your committee on who benefits and why?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so we go back to the mission of the YES organization itself of impacting youth, providing opportunities for youth that might not have other types of opportunities, and looking at a broad array of options so that everyone can find something in our community that interests them and that benefits them. So that's why you see such a range, from the public school USD 383, to things like the Manhattan Arts Center, for example. So the range is broad center, for example.
Speaker 1:So the range is broad, Absolutely. How do you? You know you're with the College of Education, you have faculty, you have staff, you have students? How do the experiences in the YES Fund, you know, with you being serving in this capacity, extend over into the educational, into the intellectual side of our community?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So there's strong partnership between Kansas State University and the Manhattan community Absolutely, and teachers are known as community leaders in Manhattan and we want to instill that regardless of where our future teachers go to begin their teaching career, and so we require that every student going through our program has volunteer hours in the community working with children and youth. So all of these organizations that we've talked about this morning have opportunities for volunteer involvement and our education students, regardless of where they're from in Kansas or beyond, volunteer right here in Manhattan to make our community stronger through opportunities for youth to be involved after school.
Speaker 1:What are some of your long-term goals for the YES Fund?
Speaker 3:So many of these organizations in Manhattan rely on YES Funding as part of their annual budget, and so making that as stable and sustainable as possible is important. So all the people in the Manhattan community that give to the YES Fund are saying we believe in our community and we want positive things for our youth to engage in after school, and so that sustainability is important, that stability is important, because each of these organizations are counting on us to fund their activities.
Speaker 1:Vern, let's talk a bit about the campaign, because it officially gets underway tomorrow.
Speaker 2:The part that will come out of the newspaper will be this Sunday, and so the campaign runs publicly from the July the 7th, I think, or July 6th, whatever Sunday is, to the first Sunday in September.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, so you'll see it publicly in the paper talking about all the programs and while they support the stories of how it makes the impact and you'll see the donors growing through the summer as it goes there. But I do want to give a shout out to all the $10,000. Well, as the Master Teacher, the Goldstein Community Fund, lincoln and Dorothy Deal Advised Fund, they actually have taken over the matching grant from the McCormick Foundation, so they give $75,000 to this Warden, brenda Morgan, russ Briggs, as well as Briggs Auto Group, the Howe Family Foundation, ks State Bank Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Ed and Karen Seaton Foundation, as well as the Manhattan Mercury. So we've had a tremendous amount of support from these individuals to really kickstart the grant process. And, generally speaking, you know, between the deal funds that are put up and these $10,000 givers and then the donations for the summer, we usually get close to about $300,000 for the year. All right.
Speaker 1:Debbie, any requests that you'd like to send out. You know we're going to be finding out a lot more. You know when the ad comes out in the Mercury on Sunday more.
Speaker 3:You know when the ad comes out in the Mercury on Sunday. Absolutely. My encouragement is just to keep strengthening this phenomenal community that we live in, and the yes Fund and the grants that go out to the organizations that provide activities and engagement for our youth are so very critical. So just encourage everyone to keep making our community stronger.
Speaker 1:All right, dean Debbie Mercer with K-State's College of Education here on behalf of the YES Fund, and that Vern Hendricks dude is going to stick around here for a little bit. But, dean Mercer, thank you so much, not only for joining us for the show today, but for the work that you're doing on behalf of the youth in our community. My pleasure, thank you. When we come back from the break we'll have gosh. We got a lot of things happening on our calendar, so we're going to run through those and also give you a preview of next week's show here on the GMCF Community Hour on NewsRadio KMAN.