VPOST Updates

• Funding in the General Assembly: The Virginia's budget has passed and includes $4 million from the American Rescue Plan funds for additional 21st CCLC funds earmarked specifically for CBOs. The budget also specifies VDOE may contract with VPOST.

• Welcome to VPOST LAC, Rebekah and Charles! Rebekah Meadows from the Boys and Girls Club of South West Virginia and Charles Robinson of Virginia Commonwealth University, Office of Institutional Equity, Effectiveness and Success/Mary Frances Youth Center will be joining our Leadership Advisory Council.

• Entrepreneurship: The Virginia Youth Entrepreneurship Strategies (YES) wrapped up with a week-long culminating event, June 13-17. The opportunity was made possible by support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and was offered in partnership with the Virginia Department of Education, JMU X-Labs, and On the Road Collaborative. YES Participants met at JMU X-Labs to bring their business ideas to life, spending the week developing a unique business idea, creating a business model and brand, and presenting it through a Pitch Challenge. From youth e-sports to a culturally focused beauty line, participants explored ways to connect their own passions and hobbies to future entrepreneurial opportunities. The week ended with a Pitch Challenge, in which the participants wrote short scripts with all the necessary elements to sell their ideas and then recorded them around the campus of JMU. Congrats to these young entrepreneurs!

• Multistate Conference: VPOST will be co-hosting a virtual, multi-state afterschool conference on October 13, 2022. Please stay tuned for details.

National News Highlights

• Power of Us Workforce Survey: Calling All Youth-Serving Professionals and Volunteers: With support from the Wallace Foundation, now through the end of 2022, The Power of Us Workforce Survey, is collecting data from a wide swath of youth-serving professionals and volunteers in a national effort to explore, define, and elevate their profession. Please share this with your network. www.powerofussurvey.org We will be given state-level data when the survey concludes which will be very beneficial to better understanding and addressing the ongoing staffing crisis.