Twenty-five years ago, a group of Simon Employees, sat together after launching two initiatives at different malls to form The Simon Youth Foundation (SYF), to aide at risk students and enable them to receive their high school diplomas, by meeting them where they were, in the malls. Over the years SYF’s mission has evolved to where we now award scholarships to further education and offer mentorship programs.

As I have always said, you save one child, and you can save the world. I believe that is our overarching mission.

In celebration of our 25th anniversary, SYF was inducted into the Indiana Historical Society on April 26, 2023, and will forever be a part of Indiana history.

We continue to invest in the mission of SYF with the launch of our new Talent Pipeline Program, to create a career pathway initiative to help SYF students transition from high school into the workforce.

SYF welcomed NEW community partners that invested over $250K in the mission: Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, IU Health, JC Penney Community Foundation, Old National Bank Foundation, Live View, OneAmerica, KeyBank Foundation, Marian University, Roche Diagnostics, and the Indianapolis Foundation to name a few. We thank them for investing in better futures for our students, teachers, and communities where they reside.

In addition to welcoming new partnerships, SYF will launch a new strategic plan that will chart our growth over the next five years with a goal to increase the number of students served, the number of scholarships awarded, and the number of academies added to the network. This includes the goal to increase the Capacity Building Grants in support of our academy teacher’s professional development while focusing on growing our alumni network and outreach.

I have challenged SYF’s leadership to complete a thorough assessment of our schools to confirm they are aligned with our mission. In addition to meeting the needs of our students as reflected in the data analytics.