YMG opens doors to myriad careers for underserved students. But don’t just take my word for it...

By Jayne O'Donnell

December 22, 2024

Youthcast Media Group®

Shaunavahn Reid was hard to miss at our first in-person boot camp in Hartford, Connecticut in February 2023. His focused, friendly demeanor and natty attire suggested a student who was, as the kids say, “100%” going places.  

Indeed. I learned last week that he’ll be attending Columbia University on a full scholarship in the fall.   

I nearly cried with delight.  

I was similarly moved by Shaunavahn’s positive response to our recent survey of nearly 300 YMG program alumni. Frankly, though, I was pretty thrilled with most of the students’ answers about the impact of our in-school and extracurricular training on their academic performance, choice of college majors and career plans. We’ve tried to stay in touch with as many of the teens we train as possible through more limited surveys and regular invitations for them to rejoin us for more advanced training. But we had never before polled so many - or learned so much.  

I hope what you learn convinces you to contribute to YMG in the remaining days of Giving Season.  

*An article Karla co-authored about domestic violence in the Black and Hispanic communities was published in USA Today in 2018. Karla, YMG founder Jayne O'Donnell and another YMG student also presented on the Capito Hill that year.

We’re still getting surveys back and expect more after the holidays, but are already at an impressive 30% response rate. The big news: 88% said working with YMG helped them in high school or college courses, 71% are in college or have graduated and 35% earned college scholarships. 

Rossy Soto, who has worked with us through her journalism class at Virginia’s Annandale High School and in one of our six-week virtual writing workshops, has found the training helpful in school classes and preparing for college entrance exams.  

She reports YMG training helped her write the essays in her IB (International Baccalaureate) Literature class and conduct interviews for her IB Spanish Language and Literature assignments. 

YMG also “allowed me to excel” in the written summaries required by the ACT standardized college admissions test, she reports. Her writing has been greatly improved in large part through her work with YMG. “I am able to easily break down the structure of my essays and implement tips and tricks I was taught in the YMG workshop,” she said.  

Back to Shaunavahn. He called his scholarship “a testament to all the people and experiences” he’s had, including YMG.   

“YMG has always been an inviting and wonderful community that encourages youth to become a part of something and speak about important topics that many people sometimes overlook,” he wrote. “The staff are all great people, and I know that they will continue to nurture youths who will make a difference in the world.” 

Now a senior at  Hartford’s Weaver High School, Shaunavahn has completed five of our paid multimedia training programs, including our fall reporting and writing boot camp on car passenger empowerment – the importance of speaking up when the drivers you’re riding with aren’t being safe. He has also contributed to our social media accounts, like here and here.  

We were connected with Shaunavahn through the Connecticut-based career training nonprofit, ReadyCT, which bases its journalism “pathway” program at Weaver, in Hartford’s historic but gritty downtown. Cheryl Eseke, Shaunavahn’s classmate at both Weaver and YMG, also just received some really good college news: she was accepted to Wesleyan University, also on a full scholarship.  

This news struck a particular chord with another first-generation college student – me! 

 You see, my late stepfather graduated from Weaver in the 1940s and never went to college, but still became a successful entrepreneur as co-founder of an electrical engineering firm in his hometown. My New Haven lawyer-brother went to Wesleyan, but says he’d never have been accepted in the 1970s if he hadn’t played football and baseball and developed a special bond with a Wesleyan admissions counselor.  

I grew up in Hamden, minutes from Yale and New Haven’s also historic-but-gritty downtown. Our father, a fireman and later a fire marshal, and our bookkeeper mother didn’t go to college, either. They also didn’t give Jack and me any advice on colleges to apply to, careers to consider, or ways to succeed (other than “get good grades,” which we didn’t always follow.) 

All these decades later, most of the students YMG works with find themselves in similar situations, except with even more hurdles. Many are or will be first-generation college students, have parents for whom English is a second language and are considering careers their parents wouldn’t have dreamed of. YMG tries to help by showing how learning journalism skills, practicing good work habits and cultivating connections can help make their dreams a reality.  

For his part, Shaunavahn wants to be an author and major in creative writing.  We have two former journalists who are now authors lined up to talk to him about both careers. Our aspiring doctors have gotten interviews with leading health policy experts who happen to be physicians, including a couple of former U.S. Surgeon Generals. Two other young women at Annandale High School, both Latina, are writing about a notable Northern Virginia architect who specializes in healthcare facilities. The architect is Latina as well. 

Cheryl Eseke is another regular - and engaging - contributor to our social media accounts. Check this and this out. She too wants to be a physician and plans to take pre-med classes at Wesleyan. Cheryl was plenty pithy but no less passionate than Shaunavahn in her response about YMG.

“I love YMG!!,” she wrote. “Y’all are bomb.” 

YMG students like Shaunavahn, Rossy and Cheryl indeed are “100%” going places.  

Won’t you join YMG in helping them make that journey?