Nonprofit Spotlight: The Refinery Youth Project

Amite resident Erin Wheeler saw a problem with the after-school program offerings in her small, eastern Louisiana town. She and her peers felt that the local schools' after-school programming was subpar to nonexistent, particularly in the areas of leadership, college preparation, and STEM. While STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is an industry that is in high demand in the workforce, STEM seems to be of low interest for many students. This is because many schools are not given the resources or time to teach STEM subjects in a fun and interesting way that gets the kids involved and excited to learn.As a Southeastern Louisiana University alumnae with a degree in biology, Erin felt compelled to introduce STEM to students in her town in a more engaging and exciting way. Her interest in biology, combined with a curiosity for teaching, tutoring, and starting her own business, led her and her colleagues to create The Refinery Youth Project. While it is currently in its infancy, RYP is working to be an after-school program that will develop and refine the critical thinking, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills of talented, at-promise youth.Many students are not able to seek higher education. Because the STEM industries are in such high demand, many scholarships are offered to those that show interest. This is the main part of the Refinery Youth Project’s mission-- helping kids reach higher education to pursue their STEM careers while refining their liberal art skills. The organization plans are more than an after-school program that helps with homework and keeps kids entertained until someone can pick them up. The Refinery Youth Project will work to create civically engaged leaders in their community and put these students in positions to get into Ivy League schools.Erin grew up not too far from Exempt Now's CEO and founder, Sevetri Wilson and has been following her career. When she began to plan the Refinery Youth Project, she thought that ExemptMeNow would be a great help, especially because all the people working to start The Refinery Youth Project all have other jobs that don’t always allow them ample time to work on the nit-picky forms.For those who are looking to start their own nonprofit, it is always great to get advice from someone who has just gone through the process. Erin’s advice to you is to “just start somewhere and talk to people.” Reading different websites and articles on your own can be overwhelming and you may not know what is what. Start a think tank with different people to get many perspectives that you may not have thought of on your own. There is no shame in asking for help.After working with Resilia, Erin exclaims that the process is “scarily simple.” She had gone to a couple of workshops about starting a nonprofit and it sounded extremely daunting. After attending one of our webinars on how to start a nonprofit, she was encouraged to get started! She says that she received great support while working with our associates. As full-time employees, her and her co-founders got the help they needed to start scratching things off the list.To learn more about the Refinery Youth Project please contact Erin Wheeler at erin.wheeler.00@gmail.com. We're excited to see RYP positively shape the lives of students in Amite!Check out some of our other Nonprofit Spotlights: STEM Library Lab, Baton Rouge Soldier Outreach