{"id":318128,"date":"2026-06-24T14:25:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:25:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/318128\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T14:25:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:25:43","slug":"first-taste-of-college-st-pete-strong-conference-inspires-future-scholars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/318128\/","title":{"rendered":"First taste of college: St. Pete Strong conference inspires future scholars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Cliff McBride, University Communications and Marketing<\/p>\n<p>USF St. Petersburg was host to around 500 Pinellas County middle and high schoolers<br \/>\n                  for a one-day youth conference that sparked interest in science and art fields while<br \/>\n                  introducing many to the college experience.\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>The St. Pete Strong Youth Conference took place on June 30, where students got the<br \/>\n                  opportunity to engage in robotics demonstrations, practice \u201cShark-Tank\u201d business pitches,<br \/>\n                  tour research vessels, learn to write songs and more. \u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Organized by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dreamfaith.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Dreamfaith Foundation<\/a> and its founder Deonte Thompson, the conference celebrated its 10th year of empowering<br \/>\n                  youth in the community with new experiences. A major goal is to help students envision<br \/>\n                  themselves on a college campus and begin thinking about career opportunities. \u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Thompson, a computer executive who lives in Texas, comes back every year to his native<br \/>\n                  St. Petersburg for the conference, driven by his belief in the power of education<br \/>\n                  to change lives. \u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>\u201cSeeing a room full of faces and their eyes light up when they see something they<br \/>\n                  have not seen before, hear something they have not heard before, it makes my heart<br \/>\n                  smile,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Cliff McBride, University Communications and Marketing USF St. Petersburg was host to around 500 Pinellas County middle&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-318128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}