HYPE 501c3 YOUTH ORGANIZATION
www.hypeitup.org
www.hypesportsacademy.com
FOCUS: Academic, Personal, Career, Social & Athletic Excellence
Helping Young People Excel, Inc. is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to assisting at-risk youth and young adult through structured mentoring, leadership development, faith-based, higher education and extra-curricular activities. HYPE collaborates with faith-based, community based, grassroots, government and private partners committed to developing/implementing empowerment activities to reverse moral, social, economic & mental deterioration by mobilizing and utilizing all available resources which enable us to provide education, guidance, support, and personal development within the targeted areas.
» OUR MISSION
We re-direct, inspire and motivate youth/young adults to become purpose driven individuals.
» TARGET AUDIENCE
Our scope of services targets, but is not limited to: The Arkansas Delta/Central Arkansas/Mid-South region. We target youth from single parents and/or low-income families with a history of welfare dependence, average/low academic performance ages 5-18 (mentoring program); first time generation high school students/first-generation college entrants ages 19 & older.
» THE PROBLEM
Many youth in our community suffer from: lack of or minimal family support and resources, high levels of peer pressure, low self-esteem, lack of positive/successful adult role models and illiterate parents who are unable to assist them through their obstacles.
» THE SOLUTION
We promote solutions that involve faith-based renewing of the mind concepts; self-discipline; social-responsibility, cognitive reasoning, mental health therapy if applicable and self-discovery.
» THE VISION
Helping Young People Excel, Inc. (HYPE) was a vision given to Tony Wilson the Founder/Executive Director in 2000. HYPE is a community-based organization that was established and grew out of the outreach ministry of Whole Truth Gospel Church of Faith where Mr. Wilson once served as associate Pastor. HYPE was designed to help strengthen the family and structure their lives by providing life skills training, parenting classes, job preparation and mentoring to poverty stricken individuals and families.
HYPE began its work long before 2000. In 1990 Mr. Wilson was appointed as Youth Pastor of Whole Truth Gospel Church, Inc. and desired to implement a secular positive environment and structured activities for the children of Earle, Arkansas. Mr. Wilson began holding youth forums and workshops developed to allow space and opportunity for the young people to come together and openly discuss problems they face as well as provide alternative solutions to way they were dealing with their issues. The program proved to be effective resulting in tremendous growth and considerable change in the children who attended the program. Although our primary focus was on young people, our relationships with the children opened the door to their families and allowed us a more personal examination of their lives.
HYPE then expanded our program to include not just the children but to include their families and individuals of all ages.
Our founder's perspective? "Our young people are products of their environment; in order to help them we must change their negative environment to a positive one. If we cannot make a change in their home life then we must show them how to look beyond their present situation and see a positive future and show them the way to achieve it in the face of adversity".
