Asian Youth Services Strives to Serve Students in its Care

Children who attend Asian Youth Services get much more than just after-school tutoring at the non-profit in Chicago. Attending the program located in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago guarantees that students get a hot meal, homework help and enrichment.

“Our kids get a hot meal everyday,” Shari Fenton, executive director and founder said.

The program began in 1992 and has always used volunteers.

“The thing is, we could either pay a staff person or we could send two more kids to private schools,” Fenton said.

In addition to serving students who attend private schools, Asian Youth Services provides scholarships to children so that they can attend private schools without a cost to their families.

Back in 1992, Asian Youth Services was located in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. According to its web site, it began serving the Southeast Asian refugee families who had fled from ongoing genocide, war, and oppresssion in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.”

In 2004, Asian Youth Services moved to the Albany Park neighborhood so that they could be closer to the children they serve. Since its inception, more than 300 children have been served but not everything has remained the same. Back in 1992, the client makeup was mostly Asian families.

“We now primarily serve children of second-generation Southeast Asian refugees and first-generation Hispanic immigrant families,” the AYS website states. “Our mission is to provide the community’s at-risk youth with high-quality educational experiences and mentoring relationships that will equip them to succeed in school and in life.”

A typical day at AYS will have students eating a hot meal, working on homework and then participating in a variety of enrichment activities - from ballet to tae kwon do.

“I think they have a good time even though I make them do homework,” Fenton explained. “The kids are great and as far as I am concerned they should have the same opportunity as the other kids have.”

Because AYS has been in existence for more than 27 years, Fenton has had the opportunity to serve multiple generations within one family.

Her youngest students are preschool aged and usually placed in a private preschool program. Students can remain in the program through age 18, with one absolute.

“In order to be in our program, you have to be going to school,” Fenton detailed.

Everything that AYS does - from making sure children are fed to providing mentorship relationships and enrichment opportunities - is to create students that are successful and graduate from high school.

“Our mission is to provide the youth in our program with a comprehensive and integrated support system to help them overcome the challenges facing low-income urban children and youth: low reading levels, lack of academic achievement, high drop-out rates, violence, gangs, drugs, teen pregnancy, and food insecurity, among others,” the AYS website details. “We focus on providing students with high-quality educational experiences and long-term mentoring relationships that will equip them to face these challenges and to succeed in school and in life.”

AYS is in high demand, They often have a waiting list for students and, since they operate exclusively on volunteers can always be helped by donations or volunteers. For more information on AYS, visit their website.