The YESICAN Story

Cummings High School graduates and 2-A State Championship Football players A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Youth Enrichment Series, Inc. (also known as YESICAN) is a faith-based, college access program for students in grades 3-12 and their families currently headquartered in Graham, NC. The program focuses on executing faith-based life skills for being successful in today's world. This includes instilling faith, hope and confidence; navigating the academic course selection process to create a rigorous academic experience; evaluating and pursuing the most appropriate extracurricular, service and job training activities and exploring college and career opportunities.

YESICAN programs include (but are not limited to):

Academic Enrichment
Career exploration
College advising
College visits/field trips
Current events
Field trips
Financial aid planning
Financial responsibilities
Lessons learned
Scholarship search

In addition to parental/guardian involvement in the programs listed above, YESICAN facilitates parent/guardian workshops that are geared towards teaching them how to identify and utilize available resources that will help in assisting their children with college readiness strategies, career exploration and life skills development. The program has a special emphasis on African-American and low-income students and families in the rural South.

After a year of planning, in the summer of 2005 the first class of YESICAN students in grades 6-12 and their parents started attending Saturday programs at Children’s Chapel UCC. The all-volunteer program staff projected that 25 students would participate in the first summer and they were very excited when more than 100 students and parents attended. While the program focused on students in Alamance County, and especially those attending schools in the Graham High School and Cummings High School attendance zones, families drove from the following counties to participate in YESICAN: Caswell, Guilford, Forsyth, Durham, Orange, Chatham, Chatham, Gaston and Warren to name a few.

At the end of the summer, families and students requested that the programming continue through the school year and the YESICAN Program grew by word of mouth. Also, parents requested that YESICAN accept elementary-age school children based on the successes parents were seeing with their middle school and high school age children. By the summer of 2007, YESICAN began accepting rising 3rd graders in the program. The program continued to grow by word of mouth and by 2007 Youth Enrichment Series, Inc. was incorporated and received its 501c3 tax exempt designation from the Internal Revenue Service. Founding board members were: Margie Cowan, Anne Maynard, Doris S. Maxwell, Bernadine Alston-Cobb and Robyn Hadley.

Since the start of the program, YESICAN has served more than 300 students and family members. YESICAN graduates have enrolled or graduated from more than 30 different 2 year and 4 year colleges and universities in NC and nationally and often serve as program volunteers during the summer and school year to conduct information sessions and college tours. YESICAN graduates have gone on to part-time employment, full-time employment and graduate school.