Meet Jenice Lee

 

We recently connected with Jenice Lee and have shared our conversation below.

Jenice, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I was in high school. It was my senior year and I needed a job to pay for my prom stuff and senior dues. I was sharing my troubles with my afterschool program director and he mentioned their second site had a job opening. At the time, I knew I wanted to work in education but didn’t know in what capacity. Applying for this job would give me a chance to explore and weigh my options. So, I applied and went through the interview process. Of course, I got the job. And that’s when it all happened. Through this experience, I was reassured I wanted to work with kids and later in my academic studies in college it was this experience that would lead me to the youth development profession.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Hi, I’m Jenice Lee. I own and operate School: After Hours Consulting. I have always believed that afterschool programming is essential to a child’s overall development, especially in underserved communities. Therefore, I decided to build a career in education; serving those communities to nurture the next generation of leaders. I have been an afterschool program practitioner for 20 years. I started when I was a teenager and worked my way up to management. My overall goal was to become a consultant in the afterschool programming space to help new organizations provide high-quality programming to the students and families they serve.

During the pandemic, I was furloughed from the afterschool program I worked for; and I decided to start a podcast (School: After Hours) to stay connected to my field of work and discuss youth development strategies that were effective for learning with community partners. A few months later, one of the guests on my show wanted to start a new mentoring program for middle school-aged boys and requested that I develop a curriculum for him. This was the opportunity that would allow me to use my skills to help build a quality program and be a consultant. Therefore, I said yes and the rest is history.

School After Hours Consulting has been running smoothly for 2 years and we help youth program managers and program providers create impactful programming that ensures student success. We specialize in building effective systems in the daily operations of youth programs so they can run efficiently. We also help community partners develop youth programs that will serve the needs of their youth in career development and social-emotional learning. I love to help bring a person’s or company’s idea for a youth program to life. It brings me so much joy to see how invested people and community organizations are in the growth of our young people. And watching these programs I helped create grow and touch so many people warms my heart.

As far as what’s next for us, we are in the process of creating planners for youth program managers for the 2025-2026 school year. A few youth programs are trying out our drafted version. If all goes well we can have our final copies ready to sell by the beginning of 2025. We’re also starting a podcasting and content creation program for high school students. With these two projects plus managing clients that’s all a nice full plate!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The top 3 most important qualities in my journey were faith, persistence, and reflection. Faith in trusting that there is nothing too hard for God and there is no situation that’s bigger than Him. That train of thought changed my mentality from “I can’t” to “I can”. Persistence because creating your own business from scratch is a daunting task no matter what industry you’re trying to get into. Reflection is a big part of persistence because in the face of challenges you have to do hard, and sometimes uncomfortable reflections to be honest with yourself about what needs to change.

In regard to skills, many of the skills that I’ve employed during my journey were ones that I learned out of necessity along the way. When you have a strong desire to do what you’re doing, your capacity to educate yourself is incredible. Of course, some of the skills I came into this with were related to the industry I’d been involved with and wanted to create, youth development, and were learned over the years because it’s what I love. However, the skills to actually execute and follow through with all the aspects of the business itself came from motivation. Everything from learning everything about podcasting, all the processes to start and run a business, social media techniques, etc. Had zero experience with any of that until the inspiration struck me.

My best advice is to be patient with yourself and the process. You’re not always going to get it right, you may have to get it wrong a lot in order to get it right. So don’t be harsh on yourself as you learn your lessons.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

My husband has been the most influential individual on my journey. He’s essentially been my business partner, producer, and cheerleader along the way. He has encouraged me when I was discouraged and doubted if I could do it, or didn’t know if I wanted to continue when times were tough. Not to mention his support by providing his technical skills with software and equipment. Maybe most importantly though, he’s held me accountable when I strayed off the path and lost focus. Along the way, he has shown patience, given me great advice and knowledge, helped me celebrate my wins, and most of all believed in me.

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