Career Readiness and Success

How One Summer Night Created Space for Young People to Thrive

July 31, 2026By

Late Night Recreation brought together youth, mentors, families, and community partners for an evening that demonstrated the power of relationships and belonging.

The sound of a bouncing basketball echoed through the gym. Sneakers squeaked across the court as a teenager drove toward the basket, faked past a mentor, and took his shot.

Nearby, younger children practiced jump shots while another group gathered for a friendly volleyball game. Across the hall, youth competed at gaming stations as siblings sat together coloring and talking.

On a Friday night in July, nearly 100 young people filled the West Garfield Park YMCA for Late Night Recreation, a community event hosted in partnership with Youth Guidance, Breakthrough, the YMCA, and local organizations. Basketball, volleyball, gaming, a boxing demonstration, food, and time with trusted adults transformed the space into something more than a recreation center.

It became a place where young people could simply be young people—safe, supported, and surrounded by a community that showed up for them.

Mayor Brandon Johnson joined community leaders, mentors, families, and neighborhood partners throughout the evening, underscoring the importance of creating opportunities where young people can connect, build relationships, and thrive.

For 17-year-old Justin, a participant in Youth Guidance’s Becoming A Man (BAM) program, that sense of belonging was immediate:

“It’s great to know everybody is coming here. We’re playing basketball. They’re all playing with us. It shows that they really care about us.”

For many young people, feeling welcome comes from more than the activities themselves. It comes from seeing adults invest their time, participate alongside them, and consistently show up. It comes from knowing there are people who genuinely care.

Parents noticed that difference, too.

“I love the fact that it’s open to the community. We talk about reclaiming our spaces all the time. I love that there are organizers, organizations, and people creating space exactly for our young people.” — Ashley

Throughout the evening, youth connected with friends, met new people, and enjoyed an environment intentionally designed around belonging.

More Than a Summer Event

Late Night Recreation offered more than an evening of fun. It reflected what is possible when organizations unite around a shared commitment to young people.

For Albert Stinson, a Community Outreach Worker with Youth Guidance’s BAM program and a lifelong West Garfield Park resident, that work is deeply personal. As one of the driving forces behind the event, he understands the difference safe, welcoming spaces can make for youth and families:

“It’s necessary. It’s important that our young people see they have resources here, that they have people who care, that they can come into this space and feel safe. It’s imperative that we continue doing this work.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson and Albert Stinson share a moment with a young attendee.

His words reflect a broader truth: creating environments where young people feel connected and supported isn’t seasonal work.

At Youth Guidance, building positive relationships with trusted adults is central to helping young people succeed in school, strengthen their well-being, and thrive in their communities. Summer simply provides another opportunity to deepen those connections.

Across eight states, Youth Guidance continues supporting young people through mentoring, career readiness, after-school programming, and community partnerships. In Chicago, Career Readiness & Success (CRS) and Community & After School Programs (CAP) keep youth engaged through internships, career exploration, enrichment activities, and community-based learning experiences that help them stay connected to caring adults and positive opportunities year-round.

Partnerships That Strengthen Communities

Creating opportunities like Late Night Recreation takes more than one organization. It takes partnership, trust, and a shared belief that every young person deserves to feel seen, supported, and valued.

That’s why Youth Guidance works alongside schools, families, community organizations, and civic leaders to expand access to safe spaces and meaningful opportunities for youth.

That collective commitment was visible throughout the evening as mentors, families, community members, and public leaders gathered alongside young people at the YMCA.

As YMCA Senior Executive Director Andre Goode explained:

“It takes a village. You don’t know what some young person might be going through. To come here and see so many men and women available as mentors—I just hope that as a community, we continue to support each other and come together as one.”

By the end of the evening, one message stood above the rest: young people thrive when they know they are not alone.

When organizations, mentors, families, and neighbors invest in young people together, they create more than a successful event. They strengthen relationships, build trust, and foster the sense of belonging that helps young people reach their full potential.

Showing Up Matters

One Friday night at the YMCA may seem like a small moment.

But for the young people who walked through those doors, it was a powerful reminder that their community is invested in their future.

The games ended. The gym eventually emptied. The lights went out.

What remains are the relationships that were strengthened, the trust that was built, and the message every young person deserves to hear: your community sees you, believes in you, and is showing up for you.

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Partnerships

What the Horses Taught Them

May 19, 2026By

Students in Youth Guidance’s BAM and WOW programs visited Rodeo for Lives in Crete, Ill. to learn about horses, history, and resilience.

CRETE, Ill. — The gravel road announced their arrival before the ranch did, slowing the bus, shifting the rhythm, letting the students know they were somewhere different before they could see it. 

Sixteen teenagers from Noble Baker College Prep—hoodies pulled tight against a steady April rain—stepped off a yellow school bus and into a large wood barn far removed from the South Side of Chicago. There were no sirens here. No crowded hallways. Just the low rustle of wind over green open fields, the soft stomp of hooves, and the occasional huff of a horse—an exhale that, as they would soon learn, meant more than it sounded. 

Inside, they were greeted not just by horses, but by a rodeo family. 

There was Robert Hughes, a retired N.F.L. fullback turned full-time cowboy. Beside him stood his wife, Marissa, and his mother, Blanche, along with longtime family friends Mike Latting and his sister, Tracy, and rising steer wrestler Hunter Wylie—all helping welcome students to the Hughes family ranch, 30 miles south of the city. The ranch is home to Rodeo for Lives, a nonprofit dedicated to introducing young people—especially those from urban communities—to rodeo and equine therapy. 

The trip itself was the result of careful coordination back in Chicago. BAM counselor Andrei Heward-Mills and WOW counselor Desiree Sheppard organized the visit, working together to create an experience that extended learning beyond the classroom into something lived. 

Inside the barn, surrounded by horses with names like Chocolate Chip, Gumbo and Apache, Tracy Latting gathered the students close. 

“Animals talk,” she told them. “If you listen.” 

Tracy, an equine massage therapist, was there alongside her brother, Mike, a lifelong rodeo rider. The Latting family’s roots in rodeo run deep: Mike graduated from the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo on a rodeo scholarship and went on to become the International Professional Rodeo Association’s Central Rocky Mountain Regional champion in both bareback bronc and bull riding. He later built a career with his father, Thyrl, producing rodeo events across the country—bringing the sport to county fairs, festivals, and arenas throughout the Midwest and beyond. 

“I come from the horses,” Robert told the students. “That’s my happy place.” 

For many of the students, all participants in Youth Guidance’s Becoming A Man (BAM) and Working on Womanhood (WOW) programs, it was their first time meeting real-life cowboys and cowgirls, and their first time this close to a horse. Some had never seen one outside of television. Now they were being asked not just to look, but to notice: the rhythm of breath, the language of movement, and the discipline required to care for an animal.

Outside, rain tapped steadily against the barn roof. Inside, barn cats scurried through the hay and around the horse stalls. 

A Cowboy’s Second Act 

The ranch belongs to Robert, a former N.F.L. player who once suited up for the Chicago Bears, Indianapolis Colts, and Arizona Cardinals. But long before the stadium lights and packed crowds, he knew a different arena. 

“I come from the horses,” he told the students. “That’s my happy place.” 

Raised on Chicago’s West Side, Robert grew up straddling two worlds: football and rodeo. The latter, he says, shaped him just as much as the former: the discipline, the patience, the mental toughness required to get thrown off and climb back on anyway. 

That legacy was built at home. Blanche remembers it clearly—horses boarded outside the city, weekends spent riding, learning, competing. 

“We just took our kids out,” she said, referring to herself and her husband. “From babies, this is what we did.” 

After a six-year professional football career, Robert returned to that first love, a passion he now shares with his three children. In 2019, he founded Rodeo for Lives, guided by a simple motto: Transforming Lives One Rodeo at a Time. 

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” Robert said. “So we bring it to you.” 

On a rainy Monday in April, that mission unfolded in real time, inside a barn filled with BAM and WOW students. 

Learning the Language of Horses 

The lessons began with the basics: how to approach a horse without startling it. Why you never walk behind one. How to clean a hoof—a careful, almost surgical act involving a metal pick and steady hands. 

Tracy Latting demonstrated, lifting a horse’s leg and pointing to a triangular section underneath. 

“This is the frog,” she said. “It’s like the life source. Every step pumps blood through the body.” 

The students leaned in.

A few students got a chance to braid the tail of Tracy’s horse, Sunny. Others took turns brushing her coat. Some simply stood nearby, watching, absorbing. 

For Shayla Hampton, 17, a junior in the WOW program who aspires to become a psychologist and own a ranch of her own one day, the connection came quickly. 

“It’s kind of like therapy,” she said after mounting a horse and taking a slow circle inside the barn. “If you’re out there by yourself, you can think. You don’t always have to talk it out.” 

She paused, then added: “The horse can feel how you feel.” 

Roping, Rain, and Possibility 

In the center of the barn, a bale of hay fitted with a metal cow head served as a stand-in for a calf. Under the guidance of Mike Latting, students took turns learning to rope cattle—awkward at first, then with growing confidence. 

Somto Azubuike, 17, a BAM participant, landed a loop and broke into a grin. 

“It was amazing,” he said. “First time doing it.” 

He had come to Rodeo for Lives hoping to ride, but the weather had other plans. Still, the day delivered something else: exposure. 

They learned that horses need new shoes every eight weeks. That grooming is not cosmetic but essential. That care requires attention, and attention requires patience. 

Somto wants to be a pediatrician. Horses aren’t part of that path. But that wasn’t the point. 

“Doing it,” he said, “just trying something new, that’s what made it good.” 

A Legacy, Carried Forward 

Rodeo, like many American traditions, carries a complicated and often overlooked history. Mike Latting made sure to name it. 

Black, Latino, and Indigenous cowboys, he explained, have long been part of the sport’s foundation. He told the students about figures like Bill Pickett, a Black cowboy who pioneered steer wrestling in the early 20th century with his “bite-‘em down” technique, where he would leap from his horse, grab a steer by the horns, and bite its upper lip to force it to the ground. Their stories, often erased, still live in the techniques and traditions practiced today. 

For Robert, an accomplished steer wrestler, his thick arms and thighs evidence of the work, the sport is also deeply personal.  

On one of his horses rested a striking saddle—ornate, polished, distinct from the others. It’s in honor of his older brother, Earl “Tony” Hughes, a fellow cowboy and football player whose life was cut short in Chicago at just 24. While Robert was still a rising star at Notre Dame, he received the news in 2007 that Tony had been shot and killed, an act of violence that was never fully explained. 

“Everything that I stand for today was because of my brother,” Hughes told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “He pushed me. He taught me everything I know.” 

The loss still lingers. The saddle remains not just as a memorial, but as a reminder: of where he comes from, of who shaped him, and of the resilience he now tries to pass on. 

Grief, like rodeo, is something you learn to carry. 

“You’ve got to be able to handle adversity,” Robert told the students. “Being out here with the horses taught me that.”

The Work Beneath the Surface 

By the end of the visit, the rain had not let up. But something else had shifted. 

Mike Latting watched the students gather their things, with a perspective shaped by a lifetime in the saddle. 

“I hope they understand,” he said, “there’s nothing they can’t accomplish. But nobody’s going to give it to you. You’ve got to work your butt off. Don’t ever quit.”  

In other words: keep buckin’. 

Blanche, reflecting on decades of watching her family and now a new generation around horses, put it more simply: “If you have the love, you’ll take care of it.” 

It was a message that echoed the core values many of the students already practice in BAM and WOW: integrity, accountability, self-awareness, determination. 

Different setting. Same lesson. 

Out here in Crete, those values were not discussed in a BAM or WOW circle, the school-day group sessions where students sit together and reflect, they were lived. In the careful way a student approached a horse. In the patience it took to try, miss, and try again. In the pride that came from learning the history—and carrying forward the legacy—of those who came before them. 

The Ride Back 

As the students boarded the bus for the trip back to Chicago, their shoes a bit muddy, the ranch receded into the gray distance. 

Some talked about the horses. Others about the roping. A few scrolled through photos on their phones—digital memories to match the real ones. 

Not every student would return to a ranch. Not all would ride again. 

But for a few hours on a rainy April day, they stepped into a different rhythm. One that asked them to slow down. To listen. To pay attention. 

And maybe, as Tracy Latting had said at the start, to hear something speaking back. 
 

This field trip was made possible by the Vivo Foundation, which funds the BAM and WOW programs at Noble Baker College Prep, and support from the Michigan State University Rodeo Club. 

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Partnerships

Finding Their Frequency: BAM Los Angeles Hands Students the Podcast Mic 

December 11, 2025By

“We wanted to showcase what BAM actually is. The honesty, the laughter, the realness of those circles, but through a platform the students already connect with.”

— Raymond Byrdsong, BAM Senior Youth Specialist

LOS ANGELES — On a quiet Saturday morning in January, when most high schoolers might still be asleep, five teenagers filed into a podcast studio in Culver City. They slipped on oversized headphones, leaned into the microphones, and exhaled. The red recording light blinked on. 

They called themselves The Starting Five. 

Over ten weeks, these young men — all participants in Youth Guidance Los Angeles’ Becoming a Man (BAM) program — would transform The Network Studios into something like a second classroom, one without desks or tests, but full of light, laughter, and self-discovery. Together, they would launch Youth Voices Amplified, a new podcast that reimagines what it means to listen to and learn from young men of color growing up in Los Angeles. 

The idea came from Raymond Byrdsong, a senior youth specialist with BAM, and Kenyon Ates, founder and CEO of The New Sound Initiative, a nonprofit of The Network Studios that teaches middle and high schoolers real-world skills through podcast production. The two met through the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Black Student Achievement Plan at Westchester High School nearly two years ago and began dreaming about how to capture the emotional power of BAM’s school-based circles — where young men meet weekly to talk about anger, accountability, and identity — in a new medium. 

“Anything that God blesses me with, I’m always thinking about how I can give back,” said Ates, a digital media and marketing professional who was exposed to creative storytelling at an early age. “Because I believe that’s what we’re here for—to serve each other.” 

“We wanted to showcase what BAM actually is,” Byrdsong said. “The honesty, the laughter, the realness of those circles, but through a platform the students already connect with.” 

A podcast made sense. His students were already fluent in TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. “Why not use a medium they’re already comfortable with?” Byrdsong said. “A student newspaper would’ve been boring. I wanted something vibrant, visual, alive.” 

Recruiting The Starting Five 

Out of more than 20 applicants across BAM’s eight Los Angeles schools, Byrdsong and Ates selected five: Kieshawn Brown, Corie “CJ” Byrd, Danari Golden, Kadumu “KJ” Griffin, and Bryenn Pryor-White — all students at Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets. 

It was, Byrdsong admits, “almost like a job interview.” Each candidate had to prove they’d show up — literally. One, KJ, took three buses each Saturday to make the 9 a.m. call time. Another showed up on his birthday. 

“I thought, no way are high school boys giving up their Saturday mornings,” Byrdsong said. “But they did every single week. They said, ‘If Mr. B is doing this, we’re there.’” 

The ten-week program, from January 20 to March 29, 2025, met from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday. The sessions were part classroom, part creative lab. Students learned lighting, sound mixing, mic technique, and editing — and, more importantly, how to translate BAM’s six core values into stories that felt personal. 

Graphics in mind: Kadumu “KJ” Griffin, The Starting Five’s artist and visual designer, created the graphics for the podcast’s title card and two episodes, including Boss Up and Visionary Goal Setting.
The Sound of Growth 

The first few sessions were quiet. “Once those lights came on, they froze,” Byrdsong said, laughing. But within weeks, confidence replaced caution. 

“By the end, they were butterflies,” he said. “Talking, laughing, creating. They owned that space.” 

Each student chose a core value to explore: Integrity, Accountability, Self-Determination, Positive Anger Expression, Respect for Womanhood, and Visionary Goal Setting. Byrdsong resisted assigning them; he wanted the connection to be genuine. 

Bryenn Pryor-White, who has long channeled emotion through music, gravitated toward Positive Anger Expression. 

“I’ve built up anger for a long time,” he said. “I find it inspiring to put my anger into a craft I like. It takes my mind off it.” 

His episode opened with the hum of a beat he produced himself. 

KJ, the group’s artist and visual designer, created the graphics for the podcast’s title card and two episodes, including Boss Up and Visionary Goal Setting. “He’d work on them after the sessions or late into the night,” Byrdsong said. “That was his superpower.” 

And Kieshawn Brown, the gregarious student who had initially stumbled over his words in front of the camera, later conducted one of the season’s standout interviews — a conversation on Respect for Womanhood featuring psychologist Dr. Asia Goodall and poet Monique Mitchell. 

“To see a 17-year-old interview a 33-year-old doctor was mind-blowing,” Byrdsong said. “That episode gave me goosebumps.” 

The pilot season’s opening episode, Boss Up, captured the chemistry of the group — part podcast, part BAM circle, facilitated by Byrdsong. The students joked, debated, and reflected on what it means to “boss up” in life: to lead, to grow, to show integrity even when no one’s watching. 

“It felt like we were back in the classroom, just talking — but this time, the world could hear it,” Byrdsong said. 

Beyond the mics, the project built deeper trust and new skills. “They left with more than podcasting knowledge,” he explained. “They left with self-awareness — with the ability to walk into a space and use their voice.” 

A Model for Expansion 

As the season wrapped, Youth Voices Amplified became more than a creative experiment — it became a model. The partnership with The New Sound Initiative remains entirely pro bono, sustained by shared purpose and an agreement between the studio and Youth Guidance Los Angeles. 

“Kenyon loves what BAM represents,” Byrdsong said. “He wanted to give back, to make space for young men to talk, vent, and be themselves.” 

Now Byrdsong is gearing up for second and third seasons of the podcast. He and Kenyon have chosen 19 students out of 27 who interviewed for a spot, drawing a new crop of budding podcasters from Westchester High. He envisions new pairings — two students per episode — and new topics that link pop culture, sports, or relationships back to BAM’s values. 

Pass the mic: The latest cohort from Westchester High School holds up their acceptance letters, officially joining the Youth Voices Amplified podcast. Season Two will run January 24 through March 21, 2026.

“If Season One was about finding their voices, Season Two will be about using them,” he said. “I want middle schoolers involved, maybe even students from other cities. Imagine BAM Chicago and BAM LA on the same episode.” 

He’s also exploring ways to expand the podcast’s reach — from YouTube to Apple Podcasts and Spotify — and to attract funding to sustain future cohorts. “When funders ask, ‘What is BAM?’ this is something they can see and hear for themselves,” he said. 

The Echo Beyond the Studio 

For the students, the lessons reached far beyond production. “It helped me find calm and confidence,” said Bryenn. “It’s not just about BAM values. It’s about what I value.” 

And for Byrdsong, who has spent more than a decade in youth development, the project reaffirmed why he chose this work. 

“Proud is an understatement,” he said. “To see my boys grow, to see their joy — that’s everything. A year ago, this was just an idea. Now it’s real.” 

Listen to Season One of Youth Voices Amplified on YouTube, and hear how BAM students turn values into voice. Follow the podcast on Instagram to stay connected with the students behind the mic and get updates on Season Two, which will run from January 24 through March 21, 2026. A third season is planned for April 14 through June 7, 2026. 

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