Author: Allison Wu Today, we wrapped up our Fall 2021 YSEP session! It was great listening to our YSEP member's service project presentations. We are so proud of everyone's hard work! From organizing a hygiene products drive to opportunities for children with autism to play with therapy dogs, our students thoughtfully planned each portion of their service projects with guidance of our YSEP leaders. Together, our students raised over $3,000 in monetary donations. We look forward to seeing what our student leaders and advocated do in the future!
Some quotes from our Fall 2021 YSEP Members... "There are many ways to contribute to the communities around you. It can be as simple as holding the door for someone else or as vast as founding an organization devoted to finding solutions to world hunger. Ways your help and action can be applied to real world situations is endless. As the saying goes, 'a friend in need is a friend indeed.'" — Sophomore "I have a clearer understanding of the meaning behind homelessness because of how YSEP was able to educate me... YSEP has surely changed my perspective on homelessness because many of the individuals experiencing homelessness didn't want to end up in that place. Much of it comes from a chain reaction of events that eventually build up to the ultimate outcome of homelessness. The fact that YSEP has made it its mission to be a factor contributing to giving homeless individuals relief is something that allows me to feel empowered and mindful of the resources I have around me. YSEP has opened my eyes into a world I was too afraid to examine prior in a gentle and caring manner. " —Sophomore "I feel I have a better understanding of how people become homeless through the presentations we had regarding the Massachusetts government and how advocacy can look different in specific situations. This program makes me want to support homeless families even more because it showed me different ways to do so and gave me an organization that I can volunteer at that can guide me with ways to support homeless families." — Junior
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Welcome to Housing Families' Youth Service & Engagement Program! We are hosting our third session this Fall. Open to all students in grades 7-12. Apply now before October 3, 2021!
Author: Allison, YSEP Founder Past YSEP members from our Fall 2020 session continued their involvement with Housing Families by running a backpack drive! Jinn & Jiji were able to utilize their skills learned from YSEP and collect lots of backpacks and school supplies! Housing Families' backpack drive aims to collect over 400 backpacks for children across their programming to set them up for success during the school year. Great job, Jinn & Jiji!
Author: Kennice, Spring 2021 YSEP Member (Junior) I absolutely loved YSEP! In the program, we went in depth about what homelessness actually is and how it can look different. I enjoyed learning how advocacy works and new ways to advocate for ourselves and others. Additionally, we listened to presentations on trauma training and even learned about how the government spends its budget. My favorite part of YSEP would have to be the service project though! For my project, I collected over different 50 hygiene items for Housing Families! I was able to advertise on social media and personally to spread the word. In doing so, I was able to explain to people what Housing Families was and how each donation would help! Because of YSEP, I am also now tutoring kids in GYFP! I have really enjoyed meeting new peers and working with Allison and Raeann during YSEP and I can't wait to continue volunteering at HFI! I would definitely recommend this to a friend or anyone interested in helping others!
Author: Ben, Spring 2021 YSEP Member (Junior) YSEP is one of the most valuable programs I have ever taken part in. The community feeling that the program leaders are able to bring is really impressive considering we are all on Zoom. The guest speakers that presented were insightful, but most importantly, they were interesting and thorough. YSEP discusses the reality of family homelessness, a serious problem that affects many people, and delivers the information in a way that really sticks with me personally. Not only did I learn a lot from the presentations, but also from the homework assignments that I completed. Assignments were posted in our Google Classroom and either built off of a past meeting's topic or prepared us for our next meeting. Planning, executing, and completing my service project was by far the best part of the program. I made flyers educating people on homelessness and posted over a hundred of them around the Boston area. Taking everything we’ve learned and putting into action to better the community was a ton of fun and why this program has been so awesome! Author: Shir, Spring 2021 YSEP Member (Freshman) YSEP was a very educational experience in many ways. I learned a lot about family homelessness and the importance of advocacy, but I also learned important life skills such as how to spread awareness and truly serve the community. For the final service project, my friend, Siri, and I decided to collect donations, with a goal of $200. Our idea was that for every $2 donated to our project, we would fold a paper crane and write a kind note on it. At the end of the project, we had raised $150! Along with this money, we sent the paper cranes to the families at Housing Families. While we didn’t reach our initial donation goal, we did reach a different goal of spreading awareness about homelessness. We, as students, learned more about the issue, and the people who saw our project, whether they donated or not, learned about it as well. And in my opinion, that was really the ultimate goal of YSEP. Author: Evelyn, Spring 2021 YSEP Member (7th Grader) My experience with YSEP was fantastic! I loved having representatives from Housing Families come to our meetings and teach us about advocacy and the difference between serving and helping. We also learned about the Housing Families' advocating process, and how we can assist them by writing letters or emails to our elected officials. Additionally, we had multiple planning sessions for our service projects prior to executing them (plus feedback from others). I recently finished my service project for YSEP and am extremely happy with my work! My goal was to raise between 100 and 150 dollars for HFI, by playing in a tennis tournament. I asked friends and family to donate a sum for every game I won. I ended up winning 32 games (which is four matches) and raised a total of $350! My favorite part about my service project was that I had the opportunity to do something that I love while simultaneously helping others. I also enjoyed hearing about everyone’s service projects through our final presentations. Thank you, YSEP! Author: Sophie, Spring 2021 YSEP Member (Junior) For my service project, I worked alongside another YSEP member and BB&N student to organize a book drive. Books are often overlooked, when they actually have a tremendous impact on children. Not only do books serve as entertainment and spark creative innovation, but they are a very important learning resource. Every child deserves to have access to a surplus of books when growing up, but unfortunately, this is not possible for all families. Therefore, our goal for the book drive was to collect donations from BB&N’s community and pass those books on to Housing Families, who would then distribute them to low-income/homeless families in the Greater Boston area. After operating the drive for nine days, we collected 225 books, more than four times our initial goal (50 books)! We are so happy with the result, and we hope that the books will successfully support Housing Families’ cause. Additionally, it was a really fulfilling community service experience. I already valued learning about advocacy and real-world issues through the YSEP program, so being able to take action through this service project was amazing. Author: Allison, YSEP Founder We had our final wrap-up meeting for our second session of YSEP today! Our meeting was filled with presentations for each member's service project and it was great hearing everyone successes and challenges. Students organized fundraisers, drives, and created educational materials, raising over $3,300 for Housing Families! I was beyond happy with outcome of this session and excited to have so many students passionate about learning and combatting homelessness. I hope and encourage our members to continue advocating, organizing service projects, and educating others on homelessness! Stay tuned for some blog posts from our YSEP members!
Some quotes from our Spring 2021 YSEP Members... "Yes I have a clearer understanding of the situation homeless families are in and the best ways I can help solve this problem. This program definitely makes me want to support homeless families more and I’ll even look into volunteering at HFI in the future." - Senior "I have a clearer understanding of homelessness and YSEP/HFI has definitely triggered an initiative in my mind to advocate and support more. I think the program does a great job of educating and providing useful ways to get out and help!" - Sophomore A major takeaway... "Learning of all the different ways an individual can serve a cause. Sometimes people assume that you need to have some sort of power (like politicians do) to make a change in the world, but everyone can work towards change, no matter the magnitude of the action. For example, all the service projects we did." - Junior "One major takeaway is that I never recognized homelessness as a real problem here, but this program gave me a new glance at problems that we still have in our community." - Junior "My favorite part was conducting the service project because I could apply everything I learned in the previous sessions. It was also my first service project I've done which is exciting!" - Sophomore "A major takeaway would be that everyone can help and serve someone even if they don't know the other person. With the drive, I was able to help families that I don't know, but they would still be positively impacted by my items." - Sophomore Welcome to Housing Families' Youth Service & Engagement Program! We are hosting our second session this Spring. Open to all students in grades 7-12. Apply Now!
Applications are now closed! |