YES Shelter For Youth And Families
Wild Rock has been awed by the work that YES does for years. You, our customers, have helped us support YES through our annual Banff Film Festival collections and promotion but we know we can do more!
YES focuses its efforts on emergency shelter, housing and education for youth at risk as well as emergency housing for families with children. The highlights from 2022 alone speak volumes:
-7901 is the number of times that a young person or a parent with children accessed overnight shelter services
-78 young people or families moved into secure, long term housing thanks to YES Outreach Services.
-The Youth Trustee program has helped 67 youth better understand their finances.
The above is just a little bit of what YES achieves with a very small budget
Questions For YES
Brooke Erickson, Manager of Fundraising and Communications
Briefly describe work that YES does here in Peterborough.
At YES we help young people (16 - 24) and families find safety in a housing crisis, and then support those individuals to find and keep stable housing. This is done through a variety of programs including Emergency Shelter, RISE Youth Housing, Carriage House Alternative Classroom, Food Cupboard and Homelessness Prevention.
Can you describe something that YES does that you are particularly proud of?
Our RISE Youth Housing Program houses young people who would otherwise be homeless, and supports them to overcome some of the factors that caused their housing crisis. It is an evidence-based approach to helping young people exit homelessness permanently, and has allowed the youth homelessness rates in Peterborough to decline in a time of exponential increases in homelessness in our community.
Do you currently have open volunteer positions at YES? What would they be?
We do! We have volunteer programs that include Gardening Crew, Shelter Crew, Food Cupboard Crew and Maintenance Crew. Info can be found at www.yesshelter.ca/volunteer
If there is one thing that you could ask of Wild Rock customers, what would it be?
Spend some time in and around the folks in Peterborough who are struggling and learn their stories. Most of YES clients have been through more adversity and trauma in their lives than many of us can imagine. It's easy to forget that the impact of these experiences can be extremely difficult to overcome in a healthy way. Understanding this as a community will lead to better solutions.