PROVIDENCE -- "AfterZone", with a $2 million a year operating budget and run by the non-profit Providence After School Alliance, has been an immeasurable success with the students who take part.
"Imagine a community where we all take responsibility for their growth from the minute they wake up until the minute when they go to sleep because they're our future economic and democratic asset," said Hillary Salmons of the Providence After School Alliance.
But the program for thousands of Providence middle schoolers stopped when the kids went on to high school.
Until now.
"The Hub", a planned centrally located drop-in facility, is the center of a new program at PASA geared to older teens.
"They really are going to need a different program than middle school aged youth. And so we're really looking at crafting pathways to employment, colleges and careers and connecting them to just exciting programs that are already out there in Providence," said Damian Ewens, director of "The Hub".
The real challenge with "The Hub" is to offer students something to do right away when they get out of school at 2 p.m.
"We've had a mayor and a city hall that's really thinking about maximizing resources and thinking collaboratively, knitting together what we have to capitalize on our assets and target them for youth," Salmons said.
"We're creating a system for all youth to get connected to all the opportunities and we've asked the youth to build that system. That's not something that's happening anywhere else in the country," Ewens said.
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