Programs at the Youth Opportunity Hub
We’re excited to offer a 6 week yoga series starting Thursday, January 12! Sign up for one session or multiple classes. Learn more and register here
We are partnering with Building Beats to offer a music production workshop beginning February 7! Learn to make high quality recordings of music, speech, and sound effects. Learn more and register here.
Girls with Impact is the nation’s only live mini MBA program tailored specifically for girls in the age group of 14 to 18 years old. Learn how to impact your world, create and pitch a business or non-profit, and become a leader! Classes meet once a week beginning February 8. Please register through the form below.
COMING SOON!
The Opportunity Hub will be focused on learning and developing interests, featuring a customized service menu designed to eliminate any barriers to success. Each member of our Hub will receive an Individual Service Strategy, that connects them to the particular range of services and supports needed to succeed.
Each of our services will lead to track-based experiences, rooted in entrepreneurship and strategic thinking. Our tracks will help youth translate their interests into marketable skills. Tracks will include Tech, STEM, Culinary Arts, Fitness, Creative Arts, Medical and Music.
Current offerings include:
Fitness Studio & Wellness Center
The Fitness Studio will offer certificate bearing training programming for students in high growth areas such as personal training, Health Coach, Sports Nutrition, and Certified Group Fitness Instructor (including Pilates, yoga, cycling, and HIIT). Students will then offer classes to the community as part of their training.
Culinary Arts Training Kitchen
People trying to escape the cycle of poverty face many barriers to getting and keeping high quality employment. We will break the cycle with our culinary arts vocational training kitchen by teaching the hard and soft skills needed to succeed in employment and in life. Students will graduate with ServSafe Managers certification and the ability to move into a range of positions in food service.
Commonpoint Cafe + Kiosk
Commonpoint Café will provide practical hospitality training while serving freshly made food and specialty espresso-based coffee in our bright, welcoming café. Participants will gain real-world experience and confidence in a public facing environment. Commonpoint Queens’ social enterprise and training program is designed to be self supporting providing on-the-job training for the students while also generating revenue to support our mission.
Digital Food Pantry
Rates of food insecurity have skyrocketed to one in four children experiencing hunger since the pandemic began in March 2020. Our digital food pantry prioritizes dignity, client choice, and cultural sensitivity enabling customers to place their grocery orders online and schedule their pick-up time. This is ideal for working adults who cannot take time off of work to get to the pantry.
Multipurpose/Allied Health Training
Allied Health Jobs in health care offer good pay, flexibility and job security. In addition, individuals can continue to build their career through stackable credentials, while working.
The Multipurpose Room will feature state-of-the art technology to provide in person and virtual programming for larger groups and serve as a hub for community to come together in a safe, beautiful, accessible environment.
Training Lab
Low-income communities often do not have access to tech and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) skills-building programs. This lack of access leads to many minority and immigrant workers being underrepresented in these high-growth, high- paying professions. The Training Lab will offer free skills training including a bridge program designed to build participants’ key literacy and STEM skills, alongside curricula aligned with corresponding vocational certification courses.
Mental Health Office
Youth, ages 12-21 are neither children nor adults and often their specific medical needs are misdiagnosed and minimized as well as very little detection and action around social issues such as food and housing insecurity. Our innovative model is in response to the significant increase in the mental health needs of young people and directly addresses the unique issues faced by high needs youth by providing barrier-free access to medical, mental health, and social services while fostering collaboration among a multidisciplinary team of practitioners and building a partnership with families to develop shared plans of care.
Creative Arts Lab
Lower-income neighborhoods have fewer access to cultural resources. The mission of the Creative Arts Lab is to support and nurture young people from some of the highest poverty areas of New York City to follow their curiosity to explore innovative ideas, artistic expression. Participants will create meaningful art and be empowered to create work that is meaningful, sustainable and oriented to a market need. Students will be able to develop critical skills through the operation of a gallery to sell their products.
Sound Engineering Studio
Young people of color and those living in low-income households often do not have access to explore opportunities in the growing world of audio tech. The Studio will nurture young people as they explore, experiment, and create new works of music, speech, and sound effects from inception to presentation. Participants will learn about new technologies, equipment, and techniques in audio engineering while building a supportive community of makers, enthusiasts, and creative partners.