Simon Youth Foundation students provide service to veterans, others perform well in business competition

We are all settled in at the Simon Youth Foundation administrative office after a great holiday season and are ready to get back to blogging the latest news from our Simon Youth Academies! In this post, we've got updates from two schools.

SIMON YOUTH PEABODY LEARNING ACADEMY 

Aponte, Ferreira, and Almedia, pictured
from left to right

We send congratulations to three students from the Simon Youth Peabody Learning Academy at Northshore Mall outside Boston, Mass., who performed very well at the New England North East District DECA competition at CoCo Keys Resort in Danvers on Thursday, Jan. 5.

Michael Almedia, Ronald Aponte and Nastasia Ferreira all finished in the district competition’s top 12. Almedia received a presentation score of 80 and finished ninth. Aponte and Ferreira tied with a score of 78 and finished eleventh.

DECA is an international association of students and teachers of marketing, management, and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality, and marketing that prepares emerging leaders with programs in high schools and colleges around the globe.

“I am extremely proud of our DECA students because they chose to take on the added responsibility of completing projects related to the district competition,” says Seith Bedard, the director of the Academy. “They balanced those responsibilities and their other school assignments very well and placed very high in the competition.”

Only students who placed in the top six at the district contest moved on to a regional-round competition, but congratulations to our SYF kids for going the extra mile and competing well. 

The Simon Youth Peabody Learning Academy operates in partnership between SYF and Peabody Public Schools.

SIMON YOUTH PHASE 4 LEARNING ACADEMY

In West Mifflin, Penn., students from the Simon Youth PHASE 4 Learning Academy at Century III Mall spent the holiday season creating Christmas cards for U.S. veterans. The cards were sent to ailing veterans who do not have families and are living at a veterans hospital in Pittsburgh.

Phase 4 students prepare
Christmas cards for veterans

“Community service opportunities are a core component of our curriculum, and creating Christmas cards for our country’s veterans was a special opportunity to serve special members of our community,” says the school’s director Terrie Suica-Reed.

The Simon Youth PHASE 4 Learning Academy at Century III Mall operates in partnership between SYF and Phase 4 Learning Centers.