Five Unique Nonprofits for At-Risk Urban Youth

Kids growing up in inner-city neighborhoods have slim prospects from the start. Drugs and crime are tough to avoid. Very few of the people in their communities have graduated from high school, much less gone to college. And even when inner-city children make the effort to go to school, there are too few resources and too many students in the classrooms to ensure that each student receives a quality education. Many kids, tired of getting nowhere in the classroom, decide that it makes more sense to drop out and join a gang, or sell drugs, or—best case scenario—get a job at MacDonald’s.

Fortunately, there’s a wide array of unique nonprofits dedicated to helping at-risk youth find ways to move beyond the ghetto. Here are some of our favorites. Raise money for these nonprofits and other nonprofits.

Fresh Air Fund

Most inner-city kids don’t have the opportunity to take summer vacations in Maine or Vermont—their families are too focused on making enough money to pay the rent. The Fresh Air Fund gives disadvantaged children from inner-city New York neighborhoods the opportunity to spend two weeks in the New England countryside, often at a farm or lakeside setting. Free from the hassles of urban life, the children have the chance to bond with their host families, play games, and simply be kids. For most children who enter the Fresh Air Fund program, it’s a lasting experience: more than 65% of the children will stay with their host families again every summer, often until age 18. Other children take the opportunity to participate in the Fresh Air Fund’s free camps in upstate New York. Since the program’s 1877 founding, more than 1.7 million children have gotten the opportunity to get outside of the city and gain exciting new experiences.

How you can help: To help out, see if you’re eligible to host a child at your house this summer, or make a donation to help support the Fresh Air Fund’s summer camps and other operation costs.

Harlem Children’s Zone

Since 1970, Harlem Children’s Zone , originally known as the Rhadleen Centers for Children and Families, has been dedicated to providing services and support to families in New York’s Harlem district. When Geoffrey Canada, an African-American social worker who’d grown up in the neighborhood, became executive director of the organization, he became frustrated to see how few children the group was helping—so he developed a radical plan to extend the organization’s programs to all children within a 24-block zone of central Harlem. He began offering services to children from birth all the way up to college preparation, and distributed flyers throughout the neighborhood to advertise the many support and recreational services offered by the nonprofit. His success rate was startling: as of 2004, 88 percent of the children within his zone used at least one of the Harlem Children Zone’s services, and the program has since expanded to a 60-block radius.

The program is so innovative that many others have taken notice and hope to use it as a model for other areas—including President Barack Obama, who met with Canada to discuss the program model to understand how he might implement a similar plan on a national level, pledging to form 20 “Promise Neighborhoods” across the nation.

How you can help: To help Harlem Children’s Zone continue to grow, make a donation to help fund their programs.

Chess in the Schools

Chess may attract its fair share of Russian child prodigies, but the game is fun, stimulating, and remarkably inclusive—it’s a skill that anyone can learn, no matter what their ethnic or economic background. Most inner-city kids never have the opportunity to learn the game, but a nonprofit called Chess in the Schools is working to change that, offering free chess education and equipment to more than 20,000 students each year who are enrolled in Title I schools in New York City (where at least 60 percent of children are eligible for a free lunch program). Each registered student is given a weekly lesson and the chance to participate in interschool tournaments. Along with being a fun recreational activity, the students’ chess lessons give them real world benefits: studies of chess-playing students show improved academic success, less tardiness in school, less aggression in resolving conflicts, and more lasting friendships.

Chess in the Schools also offers a “College Bound” program to high school students, including college preparatory services and college instruction. 100 percent of the students participating in that program have then gone on to attend a university.

How you can help : To support this remarkable program, you can make a donation to help fund its continued operations, and New York City residents can volunteer as tutors or mentors in the College Bound program.

Homeboy Industries

Founded by Los Angeles priest Father Greg Boyle, Homeboy Industries is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting social enterprise among some of L.A.’s least likely candidates for success: former gang members. Through Homeboy Industries, Father Boyle provides services such as counseling, education, legal counsel, employment services, and even tattoo removal to the young men and women who enter his program. The organization works to place its participants in jobs throughout the city, but for those who are difficult to place, Homeboy Industries has a set of five businesses—a bakery, a café, a maintenance service, a merchandise shop, and a silkscreen service—that all employ program participants. These opportunities give the former gang members marketable job skills and the chance to earn a living wage, while also helping to fund Homeboy Industries' support services.

How you can help : To give your support to the program, make a financial contribution, or, if you live in Los Angeles, volunteer as a tutor or consider hiring a program graduate to work for your own business.

Youth Entertainment Studios

Youth Entertainment Studios (YES) offers at-risk teens unique free workshops in music recording, TV production, web design and other creative pursuits, right in their very own neighborhoods. The nonprofit partners with local schools, churches, and other community centers to set up portable studio sites featuring the latest technology, where media professionals can share their skills with area teens. The studios give teens the opportunity to get off the streets and start learning marketable job skills while having fun—and, after completing a project, the teens are even able to market and sell their multimedia product. YES currently has studios in urban centers throughout the U.S., including Compton, California; Boston; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky.

How you can help : You can help support this innovative arts-focused program in a number of ways: through direct donations , volunteering your professional assistance, and even contributing studio equipment.