Broadreach Family & Community Services Executive Director Kate Quinn Finlay has announced the award of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funding. The$2500 grant will benefit young people participating in Broadreach’s Youthlinks Program and will place special focus on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) activities.

The NASA grant will benefit both the summer Youth links’ Farm Camp Program and create an Astronaut After School Program. The Farm Camp will include Summer of Innovation (So I) hands-on learning opportunities about healthy ecosystems, agriculture, plant life, and soil biology. Campers will be able to make stronger connections between science, planet earth, and the world beyond them. It will help students in grades 5 through 7 gain critical science and math skills.

The Astronaut After School Program will be a 6-week after school program offered free of charge to six-graders. Participating students will meet once a week after school for a two-hour interactive learning session. This new pilot program will begin in September 2013. The program will include Train Like An Astronaut and Food for Thought lessons. Students will be able to take on mission assignments and set their own physical training and nutrition goals while creating Mission Journals.

In partnership with the White House Let’s Move! Initiative, NASA’s Train Like an Astronaut program aims to increase opportunities in and out of school for students to become more physically and mentally active. The program uses the excitement of space exploration and astronaut training to challenge, inspire, and educate young people. The activities were developed in cooperation with NASA scientists and fitness professionals who work directly with astronauts.

Broadreach Family & Community Services is a not-for-profit agency that has served mid-coast Maine since 1983. Broadreach delivers critical social, educational, and health programming. Youthlinks, a Broadreach program, serves middle and high school age students in RSU #13 with after school and summer learning activities. There is no charge for the Youthlinks Program which is supported by grants, private foundations, and private business and individual donors.

For more information about the Youthlinks Summer of Innovation or Astronaut After School Program, please contact Amie Hutchison, Program Director at (207) 594-8474 at extension 402 or at ahutchison@brmaine.org.

The trustees of the Agnes M. Lindsay Trust have notified Broadreach Family & Community Services’ Youthlinks Program that a $2,000 award is being made to help send young people to summer camp.  Youthlinks serves students age 11 – 17 with after school programs during the academic calendar in Knox County, and farm and sailing camps in the summer for midcoast youth.  The day camps are free of charge and registration space fills quickly each year.  In 2012 forty-three young people participated in a free week-long day camp experience.

This summer Youthlinks Farm Camp is held in partnership with Headacre Farm in Owls Head and operates Monday through Thursday.  Transportation to and from Youthlinks in Rockland and lunch and snacks are provided free of charge.  The students work with local farmers and learn how to plant, harvest, cook, and eat what is grown.  Campers also participate in games, scavenger hunts, and crafts.  Afternoons include a wide variety of activities including art projects, hiking, swimming, and exploring midcoast Maine on “Fieldtrip Thursdays”.

The Youthlinks Sailing Camp is offered in conjunction with the Apprenticeshop.  Every day campers rig sailboats, launch from the dock, zoom around sheltered Rockland harbor, explore, and learn nautical skills, such as tacking, jibing, and tying knots.  The Apprenticeshop is located in downtown Rockland and provides sailing courses for both youth and adults.  The Apprenticeshop has been dedicated to inspiring personal growth through craftsmanship, community, and traditions of the sea since 1972.

The Agnes M. Lindsay Foundation was established in 1939 two years after the death of philanthropist Agnes M. Lindsay of New Hampshire.  The Foundation works with non-profits in Northern New England that help provide for health, welfare, and dental needs, recreational and camp scholarships, and  scholarships for higher education.

Broadreach Family & Community Services is a private, not-for-profit agency assisting children, youth, adults, and families develop critical skills needed to lead healthy and productive lives.  The agency serves people in Knox and Waldo counties with care management services for individuals with behavioral health or developmental diagnoses, early childhood and special education programs, collaboration with schools, pre-kindergarten education (Waldo County), prevention programs such those that strengthen families, provide positive youth development and parent education, and help prevent child abuse and substance abuse.  Broadreach is a United Mid-Coast charity and a United Way of Eastern Maine agency.

The Youthlinks Program, located on Broadway in Rockland, serves middle and high school students year round with a variety of programs that help participants gain positive life skills through focused service learning and enrichment programs, and meaningful community and school-based activities.  For more information about the Youthlinks programs, contact Program Director Amie Hutchison at 594-2221 extension 402 or at ahutchison@brmaine.org.

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