Employment Connection
- Jul 18, 2023
- 3 min read

DOCY Newsletter Vol. 4

Wrapping Up Our First Year

Year one for the Dutchtown Opportunity Coalition for Youth is in the books and a great one it was! In this first year, DOCY engaged with over 900 youth through a variety of community events, neighborhood meetings, collaboration with partner agencies, and hosting our own events. We enrolled 69 youths from the Dutchtown, Gravois Park, and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. Between our youth clients and their household members, the Dutchtown Opportunity Coalition for Youth has made over 100 referrals to assist our clients in summer programs, employment services, GED programs, housing assistance, utility assistance, and more! We are so excited to see what year two brings us.

Who are we serving?

68% of our clients live in 63118 and 29% live in 63111
52% of our clients identify as female and 48% identify as male
88% of our clients identify as Black, 10% identify as Biracial and 2% identify as White
33% of our clients are 15 and older, 53% of our clients are between 10 and 14 and 14% of our clients are under 10 years old.

Youth Spotlight

Meet Phoenix! Phoenix is a local Dutchtown teen who loves working on cars and has a dream of one day becoming a mechanic. We met Phoenix’s family at our first DOCY in the Streets event and learned of their interest in the services we provide. The next week we had the pleasure of meeting Phoenix and her sister Aria to enroll them in DOCY. Phoenix shared with us her love of video games and volunteering at St. Anthony’s Food Pantry. The next week she and her father joined DOCY at our Video Game Tournament. They had a great time with some friendly father-daughter NBA 2K competition. Since meeting Phoenix, she has spent lots of time with our Youth Counselor, Lauren, creating a resume and applying for jobs. We were ecstatic to learn Phoenix accepted her first job at the St. Louis Zoo!

Have you checked out our events?

DOCY organizes events to engage with youth in the community in safe spaces. In May, we hosted our second Family Game Night at Thomas Dunn Learning Center, where families joined us for some good old-fashioned family competition. We enjoyed board games, card games, snacks, and lots of laughter. In June, we hosted our first Video Game Tournament at The Place inside Marquette Rec Center. This popular event featured a bracket-style tournament for NBA 2K and Super Smash Brothers on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. For youth that came who weren’t as interested in video games, we had card games and a non-competitive video game space. Special thanks to Beta Made for facilitating to tournament, River City Outdoors for donating pizza, and The Place for hosting us!

DOCY in the Streets

Every other Friday from 3-5pm, the DOCY team sets up tables in the community to meet people who live in our service area. We had out snacks, drinks and flyers for resources in the area. For July, we will be set up at the Neighborhood Innovation Center on July 14th and 28th. We are currently looking for partners to be at these events with DOCY to share programs and resources. To participate, contact Caitlyn Dorion at 314.766.2853 or dorionc@employmentstl.org.

Late Night Weekend Youth Activities

The St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission has partnered with the City of St. Louis Recreation Centers to offer late-night weekend hours and activities at Marquette Rec Center in Dutchtown and Wohl Rec Center in North St. Louis. They have also partnered with the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations (SLACO) and the Downtown Community Improvement District (CID) to create a Downtown Youth Zone for late-night activities. You can see a full schedule by clicking here.

How can you be a part of the Dutchtown Opportunity Coalition for Youth?

Become a coalition partner

Are you a part of an organization or business that serves youth or offers services to youth and their family members? We want to be partners!

Bring your children

By enrolling your children ages 10-17 in the DOCY program, your child can begin receiving referrals to educational programs, employment opportunities, community programs, and more. Your other household members would also qualify for great opportunities through our partners.

Give back to the community

The greater Dutchtown area, including the Mount Pleasant and Gravois Park neighborhoods, is the most densely youth-populated neighborhood in St. Louis. There are many ways to be a mentor or volunteer.