Bill Allaire, a volunteer with the nonprofit Young Men and Women in Charge, helps participants Layee Dukuly and Sebastien Jean-Baptiste with an engineering project. The organization prepares young people for careers in the STEM fields.
Richard Roberts III, the executive director of Young Men and Women in Charge, shows off a robot during one of the nonprofit’s workshops on the campus of West Chester University.
Londyn Chambers’ grandmother marvels at what her grandchild can do.
Every time the 8-year-old has something in her hands, she’s either taking it apart or putting it together.
“If something is broken, she’ll try to fix it,” Loretta Hogue-Scott, of Norristown, said. “And nine times out of 10, she does!”
As a kid, Richard Roberts III was the same way. Now, Roberts is the executive director of Young Men and Women in Charge, a West Chester-based nonprofit with the goal of inspiring young people like Londyn to pursue careers and good-paying jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Growing up in Philly’s West Oak Lane neighborhood, Roberts knew Wednesday was trash day. So on Tuesdays, he’d scour curbside bins for discarded radios, toasters, or motors — anything he could fiddle with in his basement, trying to see how it worked.
Roberts turned that fiddling into a career in engineering, and Londyn, who crosses paths with Roberts at the program’s workshops on Saturdays at West Chester University’s graduate building, figures on doing the same.
“I want to be an engineer, an engineer that creates things,” she said, telling her grandmother that she plans to obtain a patent someday. (And yes, the third grader knows what a patent is, thanks to the program.) “I just made a stroller out of cardboard and put the dog in it.”
Volunteers and staffers guide about 300 young people, third grade through high school, offering tutoring, mentoring, financial assistance, and a host of projects, including a major science fair every February.
The program partners with local school districts, drawing young people from the William Penn, Upper Darby, Chester-Upland, Norristown, Phoenixville, West Chester, and Coatesville school districts. The Philadelphia participants attend Horace Howard Furness and Martin Luther King High Schools.
The nonprofit also stays connected with about 150 alumni — about half of whom are in college and getting scholarships provided by the group. An additional 500 kids in first grade through high school attend summer programs. A new pre-apprentice program will prepare 18- to 25-year-olds to enter the building trades.
Roberts and his crew run a tight, disciplined program. Students are required to earn leadership development units by attending Saturday sessions, as well as weekly workshops at their schools. The workshops offer help with homework and the science fair project, along with sessions on additional skills such as financial literacy and basic coding.
Students must record the number of hours they study. When they join, they must give permission for the organization to monitor their grades through their schools’ portals. The staff flags students whose grades are taking a hit.
Participants in the nonprofit’s programs must also take part in community service. They memorize a credo that begins: “I am a young scholar in charge. I am bold and strong. I will banish fear and doubt.”
For some, the fear comes in the form of shyness, but there was no room for shyness earlier this year when Faith Taylor, a ninth grader from Drexel Hill, was competing as part of the group’s Math Counts team at a national meet in Atlanta. (The team won, by the way.)
“I was a really shy person,” she said, taking a break from a Math Counts practice one Saturday earlier this month. “My mom thought it would be a good idea for me to get out of my shell.
“I’ve met a lot of new people. I’ve gotten out of my shell and experienced a lot of opportunities. This is good, especially for people who are shy. They can get out of their comfort zone.”
“We’ve had to do some presenting,” she said. “I was like, ‘I cannot do this,’ but I did it, and after I did it, I felt like I accomplished something.”
The itinerary for an annual college tour includes an out-of-state school, so young people experience traveling. The group fields a team of math superstars for a Math Counts competition at the National Society of Black Engineers’ annual convention. In March, the team goes to Chicago.
The nonprofit raises money for scholarships for college-bound students. To prepare them, the group’s volunteers offer SAT prep courses, help applying for admission and financial aid, and host a career and college expo.
Layee Dukuly, 16, an Upper Darby 10th grader, readily explains why caring people should donate to the organization. He starts by noting the upward trajectory of his grades from the 70s in mathematics to the 90s.
“My grades were pretty low,” he said, finishing pizza before heading to the robotics lab. “I needed help, and my cousin told me about this program. It helped me a lot. Math is easier for me, and I’m starting to enjoy math.”
With his low grades, Dukuly had pretty much given up on the idea of college, “but now I have a chance of going,” he said.
People who donate, he said, “will be giving money to help people improve themselves, and isn’t that good for society?”
Jane M. Von Bergen spent more than 25 years as a reporter and editor at The Inquirer. janevonbtheater@gmail.com
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