Empower

We know that strong families build strong communities. Through our family engagement system, CYM empowers parents to navigate resources, strengthen their relationships with their children, and grow in their roles as advocates for their families. Our Family Empowerment program supports over 60 families through workshops, job training panels, and family dinners, all designed to foster connection and growth. By contributing to CYM, you invest in a brighter future for both parents and children in our community.

Engage

It takes a village to raise a child, and at CYM, we’re deeply committed to engaging our community. We partner with local organizations and businesses to offer programs. We reinvest your donations right back into Frederick County businesses through our scholarships. Volunteers give their time and expertise to help our families thrive, from teaching coding and robotics to leading nature hikes and art workshops. Your support strengthens these partnerships and makes it possible for us to keep building a network of opportunity.

We accomplish our mission by offering three programs:

Ongoing Enrichment

These enrichment experiences are provided by the experts in the community. Examples are: Let There Be Rock, Frederick Gymnastics, 24/7 Dance, I-9 Sports, The Delaplaine Arts Center, and Code Ninjas.

Monthly Workshops

Currently there are two facets of the monthly workshops: General Workshops and Outdoor Education Workshops. Examples of general workshops include: Woodworking taught by our local Frederick police officers, yoga classes, family financial planning, arts and crafts activities, and other enrichment classes offered by our ongoing enrichment partners. Examples of outdoor education include hikes, picnics by the river, historical guided tours, fishing, foraging, and nature journaling.

Family Empowerment

CYM requires specific parent partner investment of time and resources within each of the services we provide. Each family is connected with a Family Liaison to form a trusted relationship, providing the technical and coaching support needed for a successful experience for both the child and the family in CYM programming.

Primary services for the programs we offer:

Registration Assistance

CYM brings awareness and understanding and ensures the child and parent follow the required registration steps necessary to secure registration in local enrichment organizations.

Scholarship Assistance

CYM covers 95% of the total cost of enrollment and equipment and/or materials for a child to become enrolled in enrichment programs offered within the community by enrichment organizations.

Transportation

CYM has a fleet of vetted, trained, and background checked volunteer drivers that can provide transportation for the child and parent partner to/from enrichment opportunities.

Teacher Aaron Vetter would hear his students recounting stories of their weekend game. And while he was honored to listen, he noticed the reaction of children who didn’t have the same experiences, and his heart broke for what they were missing. The children whose parents couldn’t afford extras like sports or music or dance lessons, didn’t do as well in school and lacked confidence in comparison to their peers.

CITY: a center of population and its people.

City Youth Matrix is a product of one man trying to offer equal opportunities to more children.

The barriers to enrichment programs are more than money and transportation. Generational poverty meant that parents who didn’t experience after school programs didn’t pursue them for their children.

As a coach and mentor, Aaron gave his time to guiding parents and suggesting programs. He knew he could make a difference for some children, but it wasn’t enough, and so he founded City Youth Matrix in 2018.

City Youth Matrix began by offering transportation and scholarships to low income children and their families to attend programs like gymnastics, basketball, ice skating, karate and dance. Family liaisons helped guide parents through registration and volunteer drivers got everyone there and back safely. CYM developed a Family Empowerment Program when they realized that the parents didn’t have a support system. It wasn’t long before CYM was recruiting liaisons and drivers, because they had found a niche that no other Frederick County nonprofit filled.

YOUTH: the period of life during which you are a child, before you are a fully mature adult.

Fast forward to the Spring of 2020 and the worldwide pandemic and the shut downs that led to virtual school. Founder Aaron Vetter knew his Matrix parents didn’t have the spare income to provide meaningful programs for their children who lived under stay at home orders. He created the concept of a “Bucket of Hope” and purchased art, music, STEM and physical education supplies and delivered them to families in a 5-gallon buckets. He included games to increase the bonding time the family could spend together. The concept of the bucket received social media attention and soon CYM began supplying them to the clients of other nonprofits. In the first six months of the Buckets of Hope program over 700 buckets were distributed and 1,400 children benefitted.

MATRIX: the environment or context in which something such as a society develops and grows.

Today, City Youth Matrix offers its original scholarship and transportation services, and the Family Empowerment Program.

City Youth Matrix continues to meet the needs of elementary, middle and high school students and their families. We will be here for them through their youth.