Operated by Interfaith Neighbors, the Youth Corps of Monmouth County provides academic, occupational, and counseling services to young men and women between ages 16 -25 who have dropped out of high school and are vulnerable to gangs and gang violence. The long term goals of the NJ Youth Corps of Monmouth County are to restore and preserve the dignity of young adults who have been under served, and enhance their value to society by helping the youth in our program to develop skills and education necessary to become productive, employable citizens.
The current Youth Corps model allows up to six months for youth to complete program requirements. This time frame is often insufficient for achieving the earlier stated goals. IFN is currently restricted to this time frame by space and funding limitations.
IFN has been recently chosen by The Corps Network, a national program backed by the NJ Youth Corps Program and the United States Department of Labor, to be a primary site for their Civil Justice Corps Project. In the Civic Justice Corps (CJC), formerly incarcerated and court-involved youth reconnect with their community and find pathways to success through service. The incorporation of the CJC program with Youth Corps will enable IFN to increase the length of time that Corps Members are able to participate in the program from six months up to eighteen months.
IFN will remodel and expand existing program space in order to meet the needs of our Youth Corps members, allowing us to serve up to 100 youth each year. The expansion will provide office space for all new staff members, and include increased conference and teaching space, private counseling space, as well as additional space for new initiatives and program offerings. Preliminary plans have already been drawn for the proposed expansion.
A Friendly Trust has pledged $10,000 towards the expansion of the Youth Corps, providing Interfaith Neighbors can raise funds to match this gift. Interfaith Neighbors is grateful and proud that Max Bohm and his family have given us the opportunity to raise these matching funds through a benefit concert in honor of his Bar Mitzvah.
