Non-profit helps local schools by Nathan Weiser

The Beam Center, with offices at 60 Sackett Street, works to empower youth by having them build spectacular projects in an intensely supportive and collaborative environment.

Beam provides enrichment programming to schools in a variety of settings, including after school programs, street fairs and day camps. In Red Hook they are at PS 676.

Joshaun Jakes, who grew up in Bushwick, attended Beam Camp City. There he learned fundamental skills including building.

Next he became a Project Leader. He connected with the Beam Center because he was part of the Summer Youth Employment Program.

“They just kind of threw me here because I was a last minute addition but it turned out for the best,” Jakes said.

According to executive director Brian Cohen, there are a variety of ways that students benefit and develop from being Project Leaders.

“To articulate a set of instructions and to create an environment where they can be safe and to create a rapport with them,” Cohen said. “And we want them to learn how to make a plan because they have a whole set of logistics that they have to manage in order to do that work with that younger student.”

“The real lessons happen in the schools because you do not get good at anything until you are doing it for real,” Cohen said.

As Project Leaer, Jakes worked on a number of projects.

One was to make a notebook from scratch where they knitted the notebook and stitched it together.

Another was making bluetooth speakers. They had a connector and built the circuit chain from scratch in addition to making the speakers.

Beam will often offer students the  opportunity to be part of one of their  apprenticeship program.

In the apprenticeship stage kids will learn the basics of how to use tools. Also, they learn how to show up professionally and learn the basics of teaching because as Project Leaders, they are teachers.

If they thrive as a Project Leader, Beam will give them a staff position, primarily in the summer.

Before he became a Project Leader, Jakes was shy and didn’t talk much. This helped him out of his shell.

“I just let everything go,” Jakes added. “I enjoy teaching. That’s what I have learned. Another thing this has taught me is to speak up and be more comfortable speaking in public.”

Beam Center originated in 2005 when Cohen and his partner started a sleepaway camp in New Hampshire. What Beam Center is doing now is based on work that was done there.

“At the camp, we commissioned large scale projects and then young people built the projects,” Cohen said. “We did that for seven years and then decided that it might be an interesting model to bring to New York City.”

Their first location in NYC was on Pioneer Street at the studio of Chico MacMurtrie.

Their next location was in the basement of the Invisible Dog in Cobble Hill. The approach started out with figuring out the best way to work with the most young people, which consisted of programs where people paid for workshops with their children.

“When we discovered what it was like to work directly with public schools that changed everything for us because we went from taking tuition money from families to working with the Department of Education to work with young people of all kinds whether they were families that could afford to pay or not,” Cohen said.

Many of the people involved in Beam Center get paid for what they learn and the work they do.

They came to the Sackett Street location back in 2015.

For this year, there is a sound theme for the Project Leaders. The teenagers work in small groups to decide the overall theme that they will have.

Lizzie Hurst, who is the leader of the Project Leaders, will work alongside the Project Leaders to give guidance on how to develop their idea.

“Once they come up with their design, then they have to prototype the actual project,” Cohen said. “That means playing with materials and tools and they are constantly demonstrating for each other, and for Lizzie, about how they are doing.”

Beam has a partnership with PS 676 that is not related to Project Leaders. The project designer will work with teachers at that school to help them design projects that students will make.

In this school year, Beam assisted with PS 676’s second through sixth grade. Sixth grade students measured the amount of energy that wind turbines produce.

Nathan Weiser