Bloomington-Normal stores may struggle to stay open — just look at the largely empty Eastland Mall — but since a local charter and private school occupied a vacancy in the strip at Wylie Drive in 2010, it’s thrived. Off the beaten path and operating out of a defunct shopping mall, YouthBuild McLean County is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
It offers free education to low-income students ages 17 to 24, all funded through grants, donations and public funding from the charter school.
Executive Director Tracey Polson said the school has more students now than ever.
“We've gone from serving anywhere from 25 to 30 students to now serving about 150 students total annually — and that’s 75 students in our school program, and then another 75 students that we serve in follow up because we continue to do follow up with our students for one year after they leave,” said Polson, who’s been with McLean County’s YouthBuild for 10 years.
Polson said more than 2,000 students have come through the program, and size is not the only aspect that’s changed. YouthBuild McLean County has evolved from a GED-only program to a high school, with expanded vocational programs.
Part of this growth has stemmed from the relocation to Wylie Drive from Market Street. Simply put, there’s more room.
But students have also started asking for more opportunities to explore different career paths, and the staff delivered. The organization originally offered only construction as a vocational program for adolescents, and now it offers health care and information technology options. Polson said the idea is to add more where possible.
What is YouthBuild?
Students are coming to YouthBuild in higher volumes as well. A student 10 or 20 years ago may have only heard about the program through a referral from a school, the criminal justice system, or some other community partner. Now, people young and old might hear about the program through their neighbors or colleagues, who’ve graduated from YouthBuild themselves.
Given YouthBuild’s roots in helping at-risk adolescents, it’s easy to make assumptions about the program — and the students in it. Recent graduate Zania C. (two students chose not to disclose last names) said she sometimes feels like people think “YouthBuild is a school for bad kids.”
“And that's not the case,” she said. It's just for people who need more help, or one-on-one time.”
At its core, Polson said, the organization is about helping students when traditional school settings have failed them. That’s why there are so many options, both for student learning and career paths.
“We're able to find and connect with young people who have struggled on almost every level, and we're able to bring them into a loving and safe environment and provide them the key to the castle, the opportunity to transform their lives,” she said.
Polson said YouthBuild is continuing to adapt to meet student’s needs. This month, it’s launching a sensory room for students in emotional distress to regulate. It’s also for students who may just need some quiet time.
“We do feel like when we think about some of the youth-violence issues in our community, when we think about crime statistics and things like that, how can we keep our young people even more safe?” Polson said. “The key is to give them skills so that they can handle stress and anxiety in healthy ways.”
For example, in 2018, several youths were killed in unrelated gun violence incidents in the Bloomington-Normal area.
And Polson said since the pandemic, there have been continued issues surrounding mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Graduates of YouthBuild
Zania, Kristal F. and Brittany Ardon are all recent graduates of YouthBuild. They all agree the program brought them to where they are. Staff helped the three work toward their career aspiration — and draft them.
Ardon is working full-time and plans to start college classes soon. She said the school helped her meet graduation requirements after being credit deficient.
“I don't think I would be in the place that I'm in right now if it wasn't for YouthBuild. YouthBuild offered me a bunch of opportunities that I never thought I could get,” Ardon explained. “Because of me graduating, I have something to look forward to.”
Kristal and Zania both wound up graduating a year ahead of schedule. Zania is now a store manager and attends real estate school, and Kristal is taking college classes.
“I wouldn't even know what I wanted to be [without YouthBuild],” Kristal said, adding that staff helped her narrow down the scope of what she wanted to do.
Zania said she likely would still be in high school, patiently — or, perhaps, impatiently — waiting to attend real estate school.
All three graduates said staff support and encouragement have stuck with them after YouthBuild. Partially, because they still get calls from Post-Secondary Education Coordinator Victoria Weston, but also because it’s something they’d never received from a school setting before.
“I was going through a lot while I was here,” she said of her time at YouthBuild. “It was hard for me to stay focused on my work, and I always just had people around me that were like, ‘you can do this. You got this.’”
Local impact
And for some students, that support never ends. Ryan Dowell and Bertam Givan are both graduates of YouthBuild. They’re also currently employed there.
“They never abandon the graduates,” Dowell said of YouthBuild.
He obtained his GED through them in 1996. Now, Dowell is the facilities maintenance director and mainly deals in construction, helping students renovate houses. Working with students who “have never even touched a hammer,” and who light up with excitement as they learn new skills gives Dowell the most gratification, he said.
In the three decades YouthBuild has done construction, Polson said students have built or renovated more than 200 houses. That’s because students aren’t just going to classes and going home. They’re in the local community, volunteering their time through construction and beyond.
When there was a tornado in Washington around 10 years ago, Dowell said students were on the scene days later, sifting through rubble and debris.
“People were amazed at watching this what we can get done when the young people are motivated,” he said.
Givan, who is a lead case manager at YouthBuild, said he sees how volunteer opportunities like this or visits to Miller Park Zoo are positively affecting not only the youth in the program but people’s perception of them.
“It gives the community an opportunity to see the students in a different light, to see young people in a different light” he explained.
'I thought everybody knew'
These outings also increase YouthBuild’s visibility.
“At this point, I’m starting to see people who don’t go to the program, but they wear our hoodies,” Givan said. “They wear the sweaters, they wear the shirts and things like that.”
Despite YouthBuild’s lengthy tenure in McLean County, it’s not necessarily well-known. Givan, who went through the program himself, had a brother in it, and put his own son through it, said he was surprised by this.
“At one point I thought everybody knew about YouthBuild, just because, you know, it’s been a part of my life for so long,” Givan said. “I didn’t realize there were… people in the community who didn’t.”
He said he hopes everyone learns the value of YouthBuild. That, after all, is how the program has grown.
And despite the lack of attention more locally, Polson said YouthBuild has made its footprint in the national network, where “everyone knows who YouthBuild McLean County is.”
Polson added that she’d have trouble turning anyone away from the program, and she hopes it continues on its current path of growth. This way, more people will realize what’s going on at Wylie Drive, just as students like Kristal have.
“People look at it and it's like, ‘Whoa, it's an abandoned mall? What is this gonna be?’” recent graduate Kristal said. “But it's actually so much… better with so many more opportunities than what it just is to the naked eye.”
