Tapping the Unlimited Potential of youth
Kokomo Urban Outreach focuses on preparing kids for school, life
This article is brought to you by Don Haworth for Howard County Council, District 3. As the most qualified and experienced candidate for the office, Don is honored to accept the endorsement of Denny Butler from United Auto Workers Local 685, who believes that Don will be an excellent representative for the district and all of Howard County.
A youth has three positive choices in front of them as they approach adulthood. They can go to college or trade school. They can enter the military, or they can get a job.
There are a host of negative choices, too. Crime, dependency, addiction. Kokomo Urban Outreach is positioned as a bulwark against those outcomes. The non-profit seeks to unlock the “Unlimited Potential” in area children and to set them on the path to responsible adulthood.
KUO’s founder, Jeff Newton, will take his last bow as executive director at the charity’s annual fundraising dinner on Nov. 10. But his departure doesn’t signal the end. The need for KUO continues, with Sherry Rayl stepping in to fill Newton’s shoes.
“This is Jeff’s hurrah for what he has done as the founder,” said Rayl of the Unlimited Potential Celebration. “He has created a beautiful project to carry these youth through to a proper work ethic, responsibility, reliability, the readiness for adulthood that we need from them. That’s powerful in today’s world.”
KUO may be one of the less visible non-profits; it is certainly one of the youngest. Newton started the program in 2006 with the goal of helping families in need. But the focus necessarily had to change.
“For 10 years we gave away things,” said Newton. “We had food pantries and clothing pantries, but then I saw people coming to us for the same help; teenagers who had come to us with their parents were now coming to us with their babies. I realized that instead of helping, we might have been perpetuating a problem. We were getting people through poverty, but how do you get them out of poverty?”
KUO began working with adults to improve their economic situation, but the effort didn’t find much success. That is when Newton turned to the children. By teaching them important life skills and encouraging their education, KUO began to make a difference in the fight against generational poverty.
The charity focused on hard life skills, such as cooking, care maintenance, and home maintenance. But it also guided youth toward being “respectful, responsible, and ready.” Both skills sets are necessary, Newton explained.
“You can learn how to change the oil in your car, but if you don’t know how to be responsible enough to show up and do the job, it doesn’t really matter,” said Newton.
Newton doesn’t know the exact number of youth KUO has helped, though he believes it is in the thousands. There are 300 kids in the program currently, from toddlers to teens. The charity’s efforts are divided into two areas: Mini UP for children preparing to enter Kindergarten and progressing through elementary school ; and UP (Unlimited Potential), which prepares children ages 10 and up for the reality of adulthood.
“It’s a safe place for kids to come, and some of them are here every day,” said Newton. “They can get tutoring and homework help. We have a barber who comes every week and cuts hair. We provide a dinner four nights a week.
“But nothing here is free. They have to use points they earn in the program. We don’t want them to think they are entitled to get something for nothing.
“If we see you need a coat, we’ll have you do something to earn it. Maybe it’s as simple as sweeping the floor or wiping down counters. We need to get it in the kids’ minds that they aren’t going to repeat a cycle.”
This philosophy of earning one’s way pervades KUO programming. Every child must put in an effort to reap the rewards offered. For the youngest children, this may mean something as simple as learning to match colors, learning the alphabet, or other skills needed for Kindergarten. For the older participant, it might mean doing yard work or odd jobs for people in the community.
By completing these tasks, the children earn points which can be redeemed for snacks, clothes, and even gift cards. And they can learn the value of saving by amassing their points for larger rewards.
To provide these opportunities, KUO needs community partners. It needs people to “hire” the UP kids to do work. It needs volunteers to teach. It needs donations. And there are many that have already invested.
“We have great community partners,” said Newton. “Duke Energy is one of them. We received a grant from the City of Kokomo. We have many individual donors. We get some funding from We Care. And until recently we received funding from United Way.
“We piggy-backed with United Way’s 75 and 5 program to get children ready for Kindergarten. When we reapplied this year, we found out that their grants were suspended. The funding wasn’t the biggest part of our budget, but it was still important to us.
“So, now we need people in the community to stand up and help us. I would like for people to come and tour our facility and learn about our program. Then, we can see how they would like to connect. They may want to volunteer their time. They may want to donate. All they have to do is call us. There are lots of ways to get involved.”
A prime opportunity to connect with KUO takes place on Thu., Nov. 10. The UP Program will hold its Unlimited Potential Celebration annual fundraising dinner on that evening at Bel Air Events, 3014 S. Webster St.
The community and attend and help celebrate the unlimited potential of the kids in the KUO UP program. The event also will serve as a send-off to Jeff Newton as he retires from the director’s position. Doors open at 6 p.m. The event will include a silent auction. Tickets are $30 each and may be ordered by visiting
https://kuoupprogramcelebration.eventbrite.com
or in person at 1701 S. Locke St. Call 765-457-1983 for more information.
After the dinner has passed and Newton’s retirement becomes official, it will be up to Rayl to lead the organization into its next phase. She spent 13 years in bank management locally before assuming the director’s position with Project Access in 2012. In 2018, she joined Turning Point Systems of Care as its director of administration and compliance. She assumed the director’s position at KUO on Nov. 1.
The mission has been set,” said Rayl. “My job is to carry to torch on and develop even more. I want as many people at this banquet as possible. I need them to hear the message we’re sending. These kids are doing some really special things in their lives.”
Rayl has a vision for KUO moving forward. She is excited, knowing that the charity’s executive board is a working board and that so many in the community have signed on to assist in the mission. She intends to bring those assets to bear in strengthening the impact KUO has on area youth.
“We’ll do some brainstorming, but I see a lot of ideas that are being birthed right now,” said Rayl. “If we can understand what our children are going through, we can have an exponential impact on their health, emotionally and physical. That is something I want to explore.
“To further our goal of getting the kids ready for adulthood, how about job shadowing opportunities? Could we institute a program where business owners could take a kid for two or three hours and teach them about their businesses? They could figure out if they want to be a business owner or a police officer or an EMT.
“We may have kids come up to us and tell us they are going to be a singer or in the NFL or NBA. Okay, but what is our back-up plan? Let’s have something in place. Let’s mentor these kids and show them opportunities. Who can do that better than people who are already in a profession and can share the joys and struggles of those fields? If we can help the kids see their future, we can start working on what it takes to get there.”