Youth Employment Academy

Background Statement

"This was the best experience I received in my almost 3 years of high school, can't express enough the growth I feel I received from learning things I never thought I would." Erica, age 16, YEA Participant

Since 2007, the Youth Employment Academy (YEA) has served young adults in reaching their education, employment and personal goals. We have developed and implemented programming that brings job readiness training as well as specific occupational skill development to underserved youth ages 14-24, while also providing wrap around services such as mental wellness resources. Working in low-income, public housing communities, YEA is committed to building and strengthening the local economies while training our participants with real skills that lead to higher education, better jobs and building equity in our most marginalized communities.

YEA began as program of the Denver Housing Authority (DHA) providing industry academies in culinary, healthcare, customer service and more. In 2012, YEA became a stand-alone 501(c)3 non-profit while continuing its strong partnership with DHA. In 2013 YEA opened its first social enterprise, the Osage Café where youth train in the culinary arts in an operating restaurant. YEA acquired Arts Street in 2016 and its award winning programming in arts and technology to further enhance and expand its offerings to youth. In 2021 YEA opened another social enterprise, Decatur Fresh Market, an international market operating in the Sun Valley neighborhood bringing healthy foods to the area and training youth in customer service. In 2022, the Osage Café expanded to the Osage Café & Mercado in a new space in the La Alma neighborhood while also retaining its former space as the Osage Kitchen for our wholesale production and training facility. Utilizing input from our YEA Youth Council, we remain flexible in creating new programming and listening to the needs of our youth participants so that we can provide the most opportunities in the most impactful way.

Impact 2023

In 2023, YEA provided opportunities to over 270 individual youth with 89% identifying as BIPOC, 97% low-income and many living in housing through our affiliate, Denver Housing Authority.

Arts Street led over 180 youth artists in creating product for real world clients from signage design to public art murals while either earning high school credit or getting paid for their work. Youth had a 96% completion rate with 94% demonstrating an increase in industry skills.

42 paid interns in our social enterprises (Osage Café & Mercado, Decatur Fresh & Arts Street) with 93% showing gains in job readiness.

Our Mental Wellness programming grew providing services to 187 youth through workshops and 1:1 therapy, as well as adding in multi-day trips to explore the outdoors, identity and art. Results were outstanding with 86% saying they learned a new skill to deal with challenges in their life, 94% experiencing an increase in understanding of their identity and 95% of our high school students staying in school or graduating.