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Communities benefit from youth involvement
by Patty Schaffner, Director of Pals Mentoring Program
The potential that our youth population offers is exciting to me! Being involved with young people in our area is a delightful part of my job at YouthZone, and I enjoy the opportunity to promote and write about the importance of kids becoming involved in their communities.
At YouthZone, part of our mission is to provide opportunities for youth to be responsible, contributing members of society. We offer many ways for youth to contribute their gifts, talents and skills to our communities.
For many years, YouthZone has been training students in the Trained Involved Teen Assisting Non-Profits (TITAN) project. The students are trained to serve on a Board of Directors for an organization for which they have a passion, and they often become an integral part of decision making, fund raising and management of the organizations for which they volunteer.
Since 1990, we have incorporated youth into our Teen Pals Mentoring Program, which I have the high honor to coordinate. For 27 years, teens have provided ethical guidance, encouragement, friendship, support and love to children in our communities and have been instrumental in showing their younger peers that they have choices that can make their own lives more successful and fulfilling and stop cycles of violence, addiction and dysfunction that may be occurring in these children's homes. Many of our Teen Pals Mentors are interested in the program because they want to work with children later in their professional lives as teachers, child counselors, recreation directors, etc. Often they use their experience as a Teen Pals Mentor to procure a job in a child-related field after college.
(Read More ...)
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YouthZone Mural Unveiling
August 10, 2017
5:00 p.m.
Corner of 6&24 and Railroad
Please join us for the
unveling and celebration of:
Back in My Day
YouthZone's latest mural collaboration with the Bookcliff's Art Center
in Rifle, Colorado
Please meet at the Ute Theater
on August 10 at 5 p.m. in support of the Suicide Awareness Event.
We will walk to the mural location together as a group!
For more details about this summer's mural project, click
here!
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Generation Found
Wednesday, August 30 - 5:30 p.m.
The Orchard Gathering Place
Presented by A Way Out, this one-time screening of
Generation Found takes an unprecedented and intimate look at how a system of treatment centers, sober high schools, alternative peer groups, and collegiate recovery programs can exist in concert to intervene early and provide a real and tested long-term alternative to the "War on Drugs." It is not only a deeply personal story, but one with real-world utility for communities struggling with addiction worldwide.
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Upcoming 2017 YouthZone Substance Abuse Classes
Glenwood Springs - August 23, 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Rifle - September 29, 8 a.m. to Noon
Aspen - November 29, 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
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Recent Donors and Supporters
Thank you to
The Aspen Thrift Shop for their recent contribution of $5,000 to YouthZone's Restorative Justice Program!
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