The need for innovative approaches for helping kids
IN OUR CITY has never been greater.

People we talk to are often surprised to learn these facts:

• Half of the children living in our city have witnessed a violent crime.
• Children’s services in our city investigated cases involving 80,000 abused or neglected kids last year – and fewer than 25% of incidents are reported.
• There are more than 1.1 million kids in poor or low-income families (4 people, less than $40,000 annual income) living in the five boroughs.
• New York has the widest gap between high-income and low-income families in the nation.

And it's not getting better: the number of poor/low income families in New York City rose from 17.9% in 2000 to 25.5% in 2004.

Kids pay; we pay.

• Almost all criminals witnessed violence at an early age
• If a child is either the perpetrator or the victim of violence, the odds are 3.5 times higher that he or she will commit a crime later on
• The average lifetime cost of each criminal convicted is up to $2.3 million

It's a fact: Programs like the ones we support help kids avoid crime.

• After-school is "prime time for juvenile crime": The crime rate triples at 3:00
• Participation in after-school programs like the ones supported by the Catalog reduce crime by as much as half and boost academic performance by as much as 30%
• A daily fork in the road for kids, where real change can be accomplished