Today We are Celebrating Lights On Afterschool!

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This annual event celebrates afterschool programs and their important role in the lives of children, families and communities! Collective for Youth strives to ensure that our community of thriving partners are empowered to ignite the imagination and grow the minds of youth.⁠ ⁠

Throughout the month of October, CFY celebrated the 22nd annual Lights On Afterschool celebration, a nationwide event organized by the Afterschool Alliance. Please enjoy this video highlighting Collective for youth and our partners discussing the importance of high quality afterschool programs.

Our video was proudly developed by Less the Agency and Kevin Kabore.  Kevin is a former attendee of Morton Middle School’s “Panther Pack”, a program of Collective for Youth (CFY). Kevin shares that his passion for video production was fostered in CFY out of school time programming and he is honored to have had the opportunity to support CFY with this project.

Our month-long celebration of Lights on Afterschool continues! ⁠

CFY kicked off the month on October 2, with a virtual appreciation event for after school staff and then leveraged its digital platforms to call attention to the importance of after school programs and the resources necessary to keep the lights on for providers. We gathered to share some laughs with a comedian Miles B. Funny Busby , played a few games for prizes and listened to heartfelt inspiring words from CFY leadership. Each participant received a limited edition CFY NETWORK t-shirt, a bag of Still Poppin’ Omaha Mix popcorn and refreshments provided by Addys Sports Bar & Grill. This celebratory event was a perfect way to kick off our month long event.

Network Meeting

On October 20th, Collective for Youth virtually hosted more than 100 network participants to continue October’s celebration of Lights on Afterschool, a project of the Afterschool Alliance.

Celebrating its 21st year, the initiative elevates the importance of quality, affordable afterschool programs for youth nationwide.⁠ 

To aid in the celebration of out of school time workers, CFY invited Jessica Donner, Executive Director of Every Hour Counts, to discuss the importance of quality programming in our community and Omaha’s subsequent impact on programming nationally.⁠

 Omaha City Council, Legislative Affairs

On Tuesday, October 26, in addition to Collective for Youth leadership, representatives from Boys & Girls Clubs of Midlands, DREAM, Civic Nebraska, and Completely KIDS met with the Legislative Affairs Committee of Omaha’s City Council to discuss why we celebrate Lights On Afterschool, the importance of the Collective for Youth network, the long term impact of providing programming, and what high quality programming looks like at each of site. .

Join us in thanking our city council members for their continued support of Omaha’s out of school time programming