Louisiana State Youth Opportunities Unlimited has helped at-risk teenagers become independent, successful adults for the past 17 years.
The summer program allows the teenagers to take classes in math, reading, English, and character development every morning before going to work at on-campus jobs.
Program Coordinator and Founder Suzan Gaston said the program was started in 1986 to provide these students an alternative environment to the one in which they lived.
Gaston said the program provides counselors and mentors for students.
At the start of the program, groups of ten students are assigned to one counselor during their eight-week stay on campus.
Gaston said the idea for LSYOU came from her dissertation when she was at the University’s graduate school. She began researching the characteristics of students who are most likely to leave high school before graduating.
“When I first started the program I was naïve enough to think that I could change the kids’ lives in one summer,” Gaston said. “Yet, it became amazingly clear that the gains made during the summer would be lost if we sent them back to their regular environment without the support structure they needed.”
In order to sustain achievements the teens made during the summer, Gaston said LSYOU had to be expanded to a four to five year commitment program in which the teens would have stable support to help them graduate from high school.
The offices and doors of 118 Hatcher Hall are lined with prom and graduation pictures of former students who participated in the program.
Gaston said old students send emails, letters and pictures of their children in an effort to say thank you for everything the program has done for them.
Gaston said she still receives letters from students who graduated from the first year of the LSYOU, thanking her for the love and encouragement the program has given to them.
Lue Dora Simms, who has had several young relatives in the program, said she was first introduced to LSYOU when her cousin became part of the program.
Simms said her eldest daughter Towanda became part of the program soon after.
Simms said the program provided her daughter with the tools to become independent and think positively about school.
It also gave her daughter the encouragement to graduate as a 16-year-old valedictorian from Northdale Academy, Simms said
Despite the many successes the program has had, Gaston said in 1996 many of society’s problems began to catch up to LSYOU.
Gaston said many of the techniques that had worked for past years did not work quite as well during the summer of 1996 because many students were more needy than students from previous years.
The students were facing a much harsher reality than the program’s first group of students did in 1986, Gaston said.
Gaston and her staff realized in order for LSYOU to continue to be a success, the program had to evolve to meet the needs of teens in a changing society.
Unfortunately, this meant reducing the summer program from eight weeks to six weeks, reducing the number of teens who could attend the program, and instead of assigning 10 students to one counselor, only four students were assigned to every counselor, Gaston said.
Gaston said these changes were made to provide the teens with a more intense counseling and mentoring program.
Terrence Hamilton, a recreational therapy junior at Southern University, participated in the program in 1996.
He said before entering the program he was shy, confused and suffered from low self-esteem.
Hamilton said when he first entered the program he was skeptical that the staff actually cared for him, yet within a week he found he easily adapted to the positive environment.
Hamilton said when he went home, he did not worry about digressing because of the support system LSYOU provided.
Hamilton said LSYOU was one of the biggest mentors in his life and he has rejoined the program to mentor this summer.
LSYOU currently serves 64 eighth and ninth grade students — 32 students from East Baton Rogue Parish and 32 students from surrounding parishes.
Jobsite coordinator Luereaner Mack said there is a genuine concern for students’ grades, and the relationships become so close the program is like an extended family to the students.
Gaston said when she sees the progress that many of her students have made, she feels as if she is a father walking his daughter down the wedding aisle.