In all five boroughs, as well as the defenders' offices and various judges who refer young people who come into their courtroom directly into Exalt.

One of the things that we like to say is that we operate as an apolitical organization, and so that has allowed us the ability to build partnerships with individuals who often stand on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the criminal justice system and criminal justice reform.

After 2017, we of course expanded our referral pipeline to include various CBOs and nonprofits, community organizations that all refer young people directly into Exalt.

So once a young person is referred to Exalt, I should make mention that we are not a court mandated program in that it is a volunteer program.

So while judges and uh attorneys will refer into our program, we do have an extensive assessment process, and young people have to opt into the change that Exalt is offering.

Um this is largely because we recognize that getting any person to do something is always easier when they are uh their own advocate for going into that program.

Um and so our assessment process is exhaustive and lasts roughly about three weeks.

Um and so it concing a variety of different assessments, including our educational assessment, which looks at where the young person is in their educational trajectory, as well as a criminal justice assessment for us to get a better sense of how to support that young person, particularly if they have an open case with their criminal justice involvement, as well as a candidate assessment and resource assessment, which are looking holistically at the different levels of support and the different level of resources that young people may need for us to make sure that we build really an ecosystem around them to support them in all the different areas that they may uh need focus on that isn't come that doesn't come directly within the purview of what Exalt does.

Um, once a young person is assessed and interviewed and deemed to be a fit for the program, they are offered an acceptance.

Um we use very intentional language with our model and our assessment process.

As we know, most young people that are uh connected to the criminal justice system don't often have positive reinforcement language that is given to them.

And so we make sure that we're using language such as you've been selected because of your amazing potential.

Um you've been selected because we recognize that you have the great potential for greatness.

Um and so then our young people have to accept the acceptance.

Uh once they are entering into our program, they then enter into our pre-internship phase.

Uh, this pre-internship phase serves a dual purpose.

One to reconnect them to their love of learning and their thirst for education, and then also to prepare them for the internship phase by uh starting to build on their foundational professional development skills.

In terms of the former, one of the things that we've learned over the course of the 20 years is that young people don't lack for a love of learning, they lack for a love of learning in some of the institutions they are forced to learn in.

Um without getting into a diatribe or on public education, um, our young people uh come to us uh really eager to have discussions and uh interactions that are talking about different topics that are directly related to their lived experiences, something that they often don't get within their public education system.

And so our curriculum, which has been rigorously researched, is both culturally relevant and culturally responsive, for the first time in many of our young people's lives uh are curating discussions uh around things that our young people have some very keen opinions on but haven't necessarily had the form to have these conversations.

So we're discussing things such as uh school to prison pipeline, mass incarceration, um, gang culture, excuse me, um, toxic masculinity, and a variety of other topics which then reinvigorate our young people's love of discussion.

What we've seen is that spark of learning from many of our young people come back and have profound effects on the way they interact with their own school environments, which haven't changed, but our young people's perspective on what education and schooling is has.

And so we start to see and have seen drastic improvements in both their school performance as well as their attendance.

Running parallel to that council is uh our support of our young people in development of their professional skills.

Um, our young people come to us having no prior work experience, which is a requirement of our program.

Um, and so what we try to do is to build on their professional skills, uh, really in a way that we prepare them for the internship uh with some foundational skills that I think we take for granted, or individuals that have professional networks that can teach them these skills from early that we sometimes don't think about how important they are.

So we're doing things like resume building, um, cover letter building, uh, professional dress, um, how to time manage all of these different elements, uh, which as I said prepare them for their internship phase.

Our internship phase has been a foundational um principle of our program model for our 20 years.

And so what we do is we place young people in eight-week long internships, paid internships, at a variety of different high yield, high sector jobs across New York City.

Um of the things that I should also mention that is really important and integral as we think about economic mobility for not only our young people, but also for this model in Syracuse, uh, is that we've also always paid above the minimum wage.

And so our young people beginning in week three begin to get paid $18 an hour over the course of their duration in the program.

Um I should mention also that a key part of this is that we do not ask any of the 150 internship partners that we currently have to directly pay our interns.

We fundraise every dollar that we pay our young people through our internship program.

This isn't we raise the money, yes.

As I'm looking at this, we're getting 1.5 million, correct?

Yes.

And I'm looking at the staffing and it's really kind of five heavy.

So I was just wondering about that 1.5 to cover all of that.

Yeah, so one of the things that I should mention, counsel also not only in that 1.5, we also have private and philanthropic um support for the Syracuse replication that is also going to support not only our staffing model, but also for our stipends as well.

Um our rent, of course, for our location here.

Um, and so while the DCJS money is a large amount of the money that is being given for the Syracuse replication, we also through our model have also private and other support for the replication as well.

So you already have those philosophical people lined up.

Yes, we do.

So we have roughly about, including the DCA DCJS grant, roughly about 2.1 million dollars in committed funds for the Syracuse replication.

And are those um entities local, or is that um individuals you've already had um contacts with the New York City organization?

Great Crushing Council.

So we don't want to like pull from organizations that are already doing the work here and double dip in.

Great question.

So it's not yes, it's uh relationships that we've built outside.

And so we have, for instance, a national nonprofit, uh, the Youth Hope Foundation, which has been a supporter of not only ours in New York City with our replication and scaling to the five boroughs, but also is very interested in supporting the replication in Syracuse.

We also have the Schultz Family Foundation, which is connected to Starbucks.

Um, and so this has always been council uh our uh funding structure for Exalt is to have a diversified funding structure that leans on corporations, government, as well as the philanthropic and private community, and it is a financial ecosystem that we are replicating here in Syracuse.

Are we should we be worried about the Schultz Foundation?

We should not be worried about the social foundation.

All right.

I have one more question.

Of course.

This is not on the financial end, but I'm looking at the structure of the way it's set up.

So it says you're gonna take in 10 from October to November.

And then from January, you do 10 more.