Pathways to Success is a fine arts business incubator in which teens learn marketable skills and financial literacy within a structured and welcoming community of support. The program seeks to empower the grandparents we serve in addition to our youth. Grandparents with professional skills including making high-end alpaca wool hats, baking gourmet breads and pastries, sewing tailor-made clothing, and making pottery provide training to the youth.
In it’s pilot year, the program ran weekly in locations including Maples Cafe Community Room, a South Toe pottery studio and the Reconciliation House commercial kitchen. Transportation and a meal are provided for each session.
There are also field trips and tours of local training and career resource centers including Mayland Community College, a Toe River Arts studio, The Industrial Commons, and Manufacturing Solutions to show youth how local residents have developed skills and make a living using those skills. Mayland Community College, a High Country Caregivers community partner, offers 2 year programs that provide licenses in welding, HVAC, engineering, massage therapy, etc. which can create jobs starting at $50-$60,000. Introducing youth to pathways like Mayland can help launch them into productive and lucrative careers.
Other community partnerships include a local bank (in which students learn how to open a bank account), a financial planner (in which students learn how to create a budget, establish credit, save money, etc.) and a local resident who spent 47 years in the textile industry with experience in manufacturing, design, marketing and sales.
The program will culminate at the end of the year with a fashion show, a craft show and a tea with gourmet baked goods, in which youth participants will learn how to market, present and sell what they made during the program. Participating teens will be the bakers and servers for the tea, models for the fashion show, and creators of products for the craft show.
Says Executive Director Jacob Willis, “Giving teens the on-going opportunity to learn marketable skills and financial literacy helps prepare them for a positive trajectory into adulthood.”
This program is funded in part by a generous grant from the Mountain Air Community Fund.