Cherokee Focus Inc.

Filing Period

Jul 1, 2011 to Jun 30, 2012

Signed

May 14, 2013

Return Version

2011v1.5

Gross Receipts

$323,540

Mission

Major Activities

Activity 2

Cherokee focus collaborative:cherokee focus is an umbrella organization focused on collaboration and capacity building for the community. The strength of this collaborative partnership resides in cooperation between organizations, agencies, civic clubs, the faith based community, law enforcement, education, families and individuals. Cherokee focus encourages and models interagency, communication, partnership and resource sharing; thereby creating a more efficient system of services delivery. Cherokee focus provides the opportunity for leveraging resources, skills, expertise and funding to create, develop and sustain programs and initiatives that will support the families and children of cherokee county through a means that could not be accomplished by one agency or individual alone. Cherokee focus initiatives include: drug free cherokee, cherokee youth connection, volunteer cherokee, cherokee youth challenge, live healthy cherokee and the cherokee early childhood coalition.

Activity 3

Cherokee youth challengeof significance this year was the cherokee youth challenge with 100 youth participants and over 100 community volunteers. Another highlight of this years event was the participation of four high school seniors that lead the way as a part of their senior projects at their respective high schools, cherokee, polaris, sequoyah, and woodstock. This year while the relationship/dating and drug/alcohol sessions of the event were similar to those in the first youth challenge, the senior girls and youth council helped design a third event segment titled reality, life in high school, for the middle school youth. The girls collaborated and enlisted the help of their friends to put this look at high school life together. Along with the games and challenges the youth designed to give the facts and dispel the myths about the high school social scene, the group of teens wrote, acted in, filmed and edited a video that was shown to talk about popular student stereotypes and create discussion on the importance of getting to really know people who may be different from yourself. In the reality life after high school maze, community leaders were enlisted to challenge high school aged students in meeting the expectations of young adulthood. Participants drew cards indicating what education level they would enter the workforce with and then based on that choice they were ask to pick a career they thought they might like to pursue one day. The youth were then given a corresponding monthly salary and challenged to make it through the maze of utilities, taxes, housing, grocers and other life expenses. By developing a game that was interesting to the teenagers and a challenge to them, the teens engaged in the game and as a result the youth began to understand the true cost of living, the immediate results of their choices and the need for taking seriously their future decisions. With help from local emergency management and law enforcement the teens were able to see up close the effects of drinking and driving again this year. A mock car accident brought the reality of a poor decision up close and personal. The highlight of this years event was once again the teen testimonials. Two of our teen guest speakers recounted their stories of drug addiction. Another youth let the group of participants know the danger of giving out too much information on facebook to someone you think you can trust and the horror of her own encounter with someone who was not who they said they were.

Filer

EIN

45-0466319