Meet Our Team

Welcome to the Young Scholars program formerly known as They Lead Youth Development, an initiative designed to empower youth through the arts, sciences, and humanities. Our program provides opportunities for young people to build confidence, knowledge, and self-expression, equipping them with the tools to become future leaders and innovators.

Mary Crosby

Team Lead

Quincy Ellis

Team Lead

About the Young Scholars Youth Development Program

Young Scholars follows the Institute’s unique curriculum, which looks 200 years forward and 200 years back to help youth analyze and evaluate their potential impact on the world. By integrating humanities, arts, and sciences, we aim to provide youth with concrete skills and methods to heal the earth, people, and themselves with integrity. Participants will not only learn but also share their knowledge, archive their findings, and process data, ultimately positioning themselves as empowered changemakers in a system that often overlooks their potential.

Our Vision

Young Scholars aims to rebuild relationships with the earth, promoting physical and mental potential through engaging activities. By connecting youth to their food sources and the environment, we foster awareness of interconnectedness and interdependence.

Our program opens pathways for community engagement, ensuring youth voices are heard and valued. Through storytelling, youth will articulate their identities and experiences, contributing to a collective future that supports marginalized communities.
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They Lead empowers youth to break cycles of poverty, enhancing their success and aligning with the mission of The Institute of Public Scholarship. With parental involvement, we ensure that social-emotional learning continues at home, fostering collaboration between youth development professionals and families.

Join us in empowering the next generation of leaders with Young Scholars!

Course Highlights

Anatomy and Self-Awareness
In a world where understanding their bodies and minds is crucial. Our program helps youth learn about self-awareness, enabling them to achieve personal and environmental understanding.

Nutritional Enrichment
This part of the program focuses on nutritional enrichment and ensures that youth reach their highest physical and mental potential. We explore the impact of processed food on the body and the environment and promote awareness and healthier choices with preventive foods.

Communication and Cognitive Learning
Our practices strengthen memory and comprehension, instilling confidence in youth's self-expression through various forms of communication, including sound, rhythm, cadence, movement, and body language.

Archival Youth Training through Sounds and Stories
This project empowers youth to tell their own stories through arts and education. Learning to collect, view and accurately retell narratives, benefits the larger community by quantifying and qualifying youth voices.

Plant Anatomy/Gardening
Connecting self-anatomy to plant anatomy, youth will engage in planting, games, and sensory communication activities. Youth will enhance their understanding of food and its healing properties. 

Youth Summer Camp/Planning
This program element provides access to healthy and active engagements. Youth will learn about botany, exercise, meal preparation and more through workshops and field trips.

Youth Career Day
Youth Career Day encourages youth to plan their financial futures by learning about business, income calculation, and self-investment. This element prepares them for lifelong financial empowerment.

Establishing Affirmations and Boundaries
Workshops on self-empowerment and community agreements will help youth make decisions, conceptualize a healthy future, and practice maintaining structure with integrity.

Community Engagement
This aspect involves the community in supporting youth and connects their efforts to larger initiatives.

Preparing Grants/Funding
Youth will become familiar with securing community support for flexible decision-making and financial freedom through youth-led program initiatives.

Life Skills/Home Economics
Life Skills/Home Economics teaches practical skills such as cooking, washing clothes, and scheduling appointments. This part of Young Scholars removes the intimidation surrounding healthy life routines.

Outdoor Activities and Winter Play
Young Scholars promotes physical activity and sports to improve mental health, self-esteem, and leadership qualities through various outdoor and seasonal activities.

Building and Mechanics
Building and Mechanics fosters critical thinking and sustainable living skills through hands-on building projects to teach the sciences and mechanics of construction.

Meditation
Young Scholars will be empowered with mental growth and grounding techniques that offer healthy outlets for redirecting punitive energy.

Discipline/Self Defense/Movement
By building unity and understanding through synchronized movement and self-defense practices, Young Scholars provides ways to stand up to injustice and respect the world around them.