As we prepare for our favorite time of year – graduation season – we’re excited to share some of the best moments from the first few months of 2019.
Consistent with years past, the first quarter largely focused on promoting SYF’s national scholarship program to encourage Simon Youth Academy students and high school seniors that live in communities surrounding Simon malls to apply for our post-secondary scholarships. Thanks to support from our Simon colleagues and nearly 20 media placements, SYF received nearly double the number of scholarship applications compared to 2018!
In January, the story of Ashley Griffin, a December 2018 graduate of Simon Youth Kelley Academy in Knoxville, Tenn., and SYF’s deep investment in the Knoxville Academy, was prominently covered in Knoxville Today. In the article, Ashley credits her teachers with enabling her to graduate. In addition, the article highlighted SYF’s $100,000 grant to help relocate the Academy to a new space to accommodate its growing student population.
SYF was thrilled to announce in February that we will be hosting our 2019 Annual Educator Conference in San Antonio, Texas. We can’t think of a better way to celebrate SYF’s 20th Anniversary than returning to the home of the first Simon Youth Academy! The conference, appropriately themed Homecoming, will take place on November 8-10.
Another way SYF will honor our 20th anniversary this year is to publicly launch the SYF Alumni Network, which aims to capture SYF graduates and scholarship recipients, gather their stories, and provide networking opportunities for alumni. In Q1, SYF launched targeted communications to this group of stakeholders and also created a private Facebook group to provide a space for alumni to reconnect. If you are a graduate of one of our 35 Simon Youth Academies, we’d love to hear from you! Visit syf.org/alumni to register for the SYF Alumni Network today!
This winter, the Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development announced a contest encouraging residents to vote for the future paint color of a bridge that was being remodeled over Indy’s Canal Walk. SYF saw a fun opportunity to encourage local supporters to vote for the color orange. SYF promoted the contest on social media and also took a trip to the bridge and took a team photo to encourage social shares. The contest ran for a couple of weeks, and orange was named the winning color. We are looking forward to having some SYF orange in the heart of our home city!
The first 2019 Simon Youth Academy graduation is now less than a month away! If you are active on social media please follow SYF on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – we will be sharing graduation photos, graduate stories, and more throughout the spring graduation season!
If you are inspired to help more students walk across the graduation stage, you can make a donation to SYF by visiting syf.org/donate!
