For any number of reasons, they did not finish and graduate from high school. 

But a relatively new program in West Valley City is giving a group of young people a chance to further their education. 

The PROG Development Center works with various community organizations to provide support for achieving high school graduation, access to higher education, career training and preparing for the workplace. Its focus is specifically on West Valley City.

“It was a city that was identified to, statistically speaking, kind of need more resources and so we’re here to provide more education and workforce-readiness skills,” Diana Martinez said, community outreach liaison for PROG Development Center.  

Currently, there are up to 15 students participating in four different programs within PROG Development, ranging in ages from 16 to 24. They come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences that steered some of them away from the traditional path of attending and graduating from high school. Besides guiding them through at least a high school education, PROG Development and its staff of four partners with educational and other institutions to offer training in technology as an entryway to a career. The University of Utah is one of those partners through its UI/UX certificate program. UI stands for user interface design and UX is short for user experience design, particularly as it applies to building a website. Several PROG Development students are in the program at any given time in hopes of taking the skills learned there to further their professional and personal growth.  

Community and other organizations and grants have also helped PROG Development secure funds to provide several $10,000 scholarships for some of its students.

But to get to that step, PROG Development wants to ensure that the young people it guides and mentors at least complete their high school education. “We are exploring the possibility of having a day GED class for students that were unable to graduate,” Martinez said. 

PROG Development Center was started by a seemingly unlikely source, a company called Progressive Leasing, which connects consumers with stores that offer lease-to-own options for products such as furniture, appliances, jewelry, electronics, mobile devices and more.

“It is an effort to kind of give back to the community,” Martinez said of the Draper-based company. “They thought it would be best to give back in their own backyard, which is West Valley.” 

Indeed, a section of PROG Development’s website states “Through the convergence of technology, education and community-based organizations alongside the dedicated involvement of government partners, we are posed to elevate the lives of youth, turning their dreams into realities.”

For more information, visit https://progfoundation.org/prog-development-center. λ