History

National Youth Community Center (NYCC) started in Los Angeles as a youth service group called Teens for Teens, an organization established in 2009. Teens for Teens was founded by students who wanted to help their peers any way they could in the local community. To accomplish this objective, the student founders raised funds to award scholarship and were directly involved in providing academic support and mentorship to their peers. By motivating the students to focus on academic and career related endeavors, the founders wanted to reduce the juvenile delinquency and recidivism, and school dropout rates.

These students' activities attracted the attention of academicians, particularly Ochan Otim (PhD, at the time a Caltech Fellow) , Nader Satvat (Purdue Engineering PhD), Kevin Qijin (Northwestern University Biology PhD), and Sina Tuy (Computer Science Master) as mentors. This led to the creation of TEAMS (Technology Engineering And Mathematics and Science) research institute to act as a charitable organizational bas for discovering an nurturing talents in science. As TEAMS developed, students from the informal research institute won awards the Los Angeles County Science & Engineering Fair. With time, it became clear that TEAMS needed to expand with the increasing attention it was receiving. Hence the development of NYCC to serve as a home for more diverse youth programs.

NYCC aims to provide the necessary education for students by working together with communities to develop academic excellence in various fields with a focus on providing academic assistance to low-income students, homeless children, and children of single-parents in Los Angeles County. It is the largest organization for students in name and reality that can support more programs to students through the cooperation of passionate group heads in each field.

NYCC is glad to count as partners the following organizations: Boston Education that has helped and continue to help with the academic programs, The Salvation Army - Los Angeles Korean Corps, Hayfield Conservatory of Music, LA Sinfonietta Orchestra, Jr. Pyong Tong (Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, Help On The Go, EJ Music, Hong Art and AriAri to name a few. These are organizations that support youth in various fields such as politics, diplomacy, music, service, leadership, art and science. Their contributions collectively through NYCC allow students to receive support in a variety of fields, and to gain knowledge and culture not learned at school.

NYCC is developing as an educational organization that satisfies intellectual curiosity of young people while developing their talents and creativity. In scientific research, NYCC hopes to partner with the American Junior Academy of Sciences (AJAS) on a yearly basis to expose our students to a broader context of their work.

About 250 members are registered in the various programs NYCC offers at this time.