In June, 2025, OFY awarded its first scholarships to the initial two winners of the Shirley and Walter Massey Scholarships, Jaiden Santiago and Sergio Garcia. Both were recent graduates of World Language High School in Little Village and have been participants in OFY’s What’s Up with Manhood program since their freshman year. Jaiden attends Truman College and Sergio attends Daley College. The scholarships this first year are $2,000 per recipient and can be used for any college expense. Shirley and Walter recently gave a large gift to Options that will help provide future scholarships to attend the City Colleges of Chicago. Next June 2026, with 175-200 teenage boys participating in What’s Up with Manhood and 50 graduating seniors from four high schools, we hope to increase the Shirley and Walter Massey scholarships awarded.

The Subsequent Pregnancy Program continues efforts to expand to the South Side of Chicago, with new outreach in Roseland, Englewood, Washington Park, Ashburn-Gresham, South Lawn, and more communities. Two Home Visitors, Jasmine and Kenesha, recently attended a community networking event sponsored by the Cook County States Attorney Office, where they provided free children’s books and information about how to join the program.

From the end of June to the beginning of August, 60 young Chicagoans, ages 14 to 15, participated in the Chicagobility program offered by Options for Youth and the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services. The group could choose from three tracks: (1) Intro to coding with Arduino, (2) Murals and Art for Little Village High School campus, and (3) Job Preparedness skills. We also devoted time to taking care of your mental health, financial learning (with Huntington Bank), and My CHI.MyFuture. After 6 weeks, 53 participants successfully completed the programs and achieved their certificates.

We are SO proud of our Director of Male Programs, Luciano Medellin, recipient of the Latinx Community Awards 2022, presented by Wintrust Community Banks. The awards honor Latinx leaders from Chicago who make a difference, instigating positive change, and impacting the people living in their communities. #WLCA2022 #latinxcommunityawards2022

Faced with increased violence in Little Village, our approach emphasizes “there’s more to being a man”

Despite the challenges caused by COVID-19 and remote learning over the last seventeen months, a unique violence prevention program for teen boys saw 98% of its seniors graduate from high school in 2020 and 2021. Options for Youth’s “What’s Up with Manhood?” program works with teen boys in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood to prevent high school dropout and to reduce the impact of violence in their young lives.

A total of 45 senior participants in the What’s Up program at World Language High School in Little Village graduated in 2020 and 2021 during the ongoing pandemic, with 100% accepted into college or trade school. A majority of the graduates had been with the program since their freshman year of high school. Read the full press release here.

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Options for Youth works with at-risk adolescents on the South and West Sides of Chicago to help them maximize their potential to achieve academic and life success. By supporting and empowering the most vulnerable groups of adolescents in our city, we are helping to break the cycle of poverty and we know that community partnerships make all the difference!

We are currently looking for corporate sponsors for our Summer Youth Employment Training (SYEP) which provides valuable job-skills training to 60 young men and women (ages 16-19) each summer. In partnership with One Summer Chicago, our program offers hands-on experiences to at-risk teens with the goal of increasing engagement in the workforce and in their own communities during summer break. Click here for more information on this invaluable opportunity!

Despite the challenges caused by COVID-19 isolation and remote learning, a unique violence prevention program for teen boys saw 100% of its seniors graduate from high school this month. All 34 of the seniors in the “What’s Up with Manhood” program at World Language High School in Little Village graduated, and 80% have been accepted into college or trade school.

Options for Youth’s “What’s Up with Manhood?” program provides a new approach to reducing the impact of violence in the lives of adolescent boys in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. Chicago-based Options for Youth partnered with Promundo, a global leader in working with men and boys for gender justice and violence reduction, to develop the What’s Up with Manhood? curriculum, a gender transformative curriculum that helps young men growing up in one of Chicago’s most underserved neighborhoods think critically about “what it means to be a man” in their community.

Since 2017, 107 teenage boys participated in the What’s Up program. All are minority and growing up in in a neighborhood where one-third of the families live in poverty. Fewer than half of the high school students in Little Village graduate each year and only 6% graduate from college. This year, with COVID isolation, participants faced increased obstacles as they neared graduation and many had to keep up with schoolwork on cell phones because they had no computer or internet in their home.

Read the full press release here.

Once again, the Logan Foundation flies to the rescue, just like Superman. OFY Home Visitors are thrilled by the recent delivery of boxes and boxes of supplies for our at-risk teen families as they shelter in place and try to stay safe. Groceries, household supplies (such as wipes and soaps), books for reading to their babies, and so much more, will make a huge difference in the lives of these young parents and their babies.