She’s 22, has 3 credits, and quit high school because of bullying and severe anxiety. She’s never had a job or been a volunteer. She’s now upgrading at PELC and earning credits toward her diploma. Now imagine her and a PELC staff, selling popcorn from our awesome cart: PELC Pops at one of the many County events. She begins to feel more comfortable during this supervised training. She’s raising funds and awareness for her school, and feels good about being able to ‘give back’. She smiles, hands customers their popcorn, makes change, and wishes them a good day. On the way home, she’s so proud of the work she’s done, the skills she’s learned, and can’t stop talking about how much fun it was. She has engaged: with customers, staff, herself, and her community. Most of our students have limited workplace experience, as well as anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. They need significant mentoring, job coaching, and support in order to learn the skills necessary to attend school and find meaningful employment. This funding would allow us to operate a small scale, portable, and self-sustaining training site. Students would learn transferable skills such as customer service and cash handling, as well as skills related to planning, ordering, and maintaining a social enterprise. The hours they work can count towards those that are required to graduate with an OSSD or as a coop credit. There are many amazing events in PEC. Sadly, most of our students don’t attend these events for a variety of reasons, including a lack of skill, confidence, and support. The recent Vital Signs Report states that youth have a serious lack of engagement in their community. We are always looking for events to attend, but that doesn't increase their ‘engagement’. They need to be more involved, but in a safe and nurturing way. This popcorn cart would be a vehicle to engage, an opportunity to try new experiences, and a chance to broaden networks. It’s an awesome win-win!