Our YES! Speaks event was our last event of 2025 and it was an incredible way to cap an amazing year! 7 dearly loved people from our community were given the prompt “Talk about a time or an event in your life that you believe shapes who you are today” and then, invited to share their reflections with us, with our community. It was powerful. One of our speakers moved to White Center as a teenager, grew up playing basketball, built strong relationships in the community, went away to college and upon earning his B.A. in Criminal Justice, came back to work in the neighborhood as a youth worker at the Boys and Girls Club. J.C. now works for the county in juvenile justice and is currently the Head Coach of the Evergreen HS Boys Basketball team! He believes he is in a full circle moment, crediting in large part, the people and mentors who believed in him and encouraged his growth as a young person. Another of our speakers, Rich, graduated from high school last year and is now a freshman in college. He talked about loving his community and being a son, a brother, a friend, a student and being Hispanic. As a youngster, he dreamt of being a Power Ranger. Especially the Red Power Ranger because of his courage and willingness to step in when his teammates were in trouble! Rich spoke about growing, learning and living into his leadership skills and its calling upon his life. Each and every one of our speakers were thoughtful, honest and transparent in their presentation. I'm grateful for their generosity and courage to share their story!

      One of the MANY things we are excited about in 2026 is that we will open, manage and make available to our community’s youth a recording studio! There are many ways that we plan to use the studio. In addition to running after school programs of music production and podcast programming, we are partnering with the White Center CDA to teach and offer studio related entrepreneurial opportunities and training for our young people to explore! Exciting right?
 

       Thank you for your support last year and every year. For your friendship, intention and your prayers. For all of the cups of coffee, lunches and the sponsoring of all the pizza, banh mi, ice cream, spam musubis and tarteletas (my favorite). For barbecues in your back yard, games at the park and for driving van loads of teenagers with us. For being willing to share your wisdom, expertise and time with a young person that we send your way. For prioritizing YES! as an organization that you care for with your finances, your resources and your heart. We officially turn 25 years old in 2026 and I take none of this for granted!