Union of Youth

The Northfield Union of Youth’s Youth Board was recently selected as a winner of The Minnesota Alliance With Youth’s Red Wagon Award. The award was given to youth groups and young individuals who have demonstrated increased academic achievement, civic engagement & service, and exemplary leadership. The selection committee consisted of the Alliance Leadership Team, Minnesota’s Youth Advisory Council members, key partners, and AmeriCorps Promise Fellows. Three youth from the current Youth Board recently attended the ceremony held at the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul. Presenting the awards this year was Lt. Governor for the State of Minnesota, Carol Molnau. Congratulations Youth Board!!! Thanks to our local rep David Bly for the photo.

This was originally posted by Zach Pruitt on the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative website on September 9th and just now picked up by the Northfield Union of Youth media department.

The Minnesota Office of Justice Programs announced on Friday that Northfield has been selected as a recepient of funding from the “Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” This federal stimulus funding will support the Northfield PRIMEtime out-of-school collaborative, which provides free after school and summer programming to over 1,300 local youth (unduplicated) in grades K-12 each year. The Northfield Public Schools served as the official applicant for the collaborative. Northfield will receive $246,039 total over a two-year period.

The funding will provide staffing support for four important youth programs, as well as transportation costs to get local youth to/from these programs:

* Northfield Union of Youth/The Key

* Middle School Youth Center

* PLUS after school program at Bridgewater, Greenvale Park, and Sibley Elementary Schools

* Summer PLUS program

A total of 315 applicants statewide applied for this funding. Northfield PRIMEtime was one of 41 projects selected through a competitive review process.

The Northfield funding will help to replace a two-year after school grant from the Minnesota Department of Education that expired at the end of August and for which no additional state money was available. The Northfield News featured a story on this grant — and its impact on local youth — this summer.

Congratulations to the Northfield Public Schools and all the PRIMEtime partners for this grant, which will assure the continuation of important free out-of-school-time programs for young people in our community!

Did you know The Key has a radio show?  If you did, good for you!  If you didn’t…..for shame!  Just kidding.

I just wanted to mention that The KeYMN Radio Show Podcast will no longer be available here, which is where it has been available for about a year now.  It will be available here instead, because the station we broadcast off of, KYMN Radio, has been kind enough to add our humble show to the entire station’s podcast.  The last episode to be featured on our independent podcast site will probably be the August 29th episode.