What Is Street Life?

-
Our trailer before renovations began.

For years, Danny has had the dream to renovate a trailer into a mobile drop-in centre that would have the ability to meet youth where they are. This past fall, this dream became a bit more of a reality as we purchased a trailer and signed an agreement with Yorkson Creek Middle School to use their parking lot as the location for our Street Life program.

The intent of Street Life is to meet the youth where they are. Often times, youth do not have the means to access a program if transportation is required. With a mobile drop-in centre, we have the ability to go into the community where the youth are. Our trailer is currently being equipped with a video game system, sound system, concession stand area and storage so that we can provide a great outdoor experience for youth.

In October we began our soft-launch for Street Life. This took research, price comparing and product purchasing in order to ensure that Street Life could provide basic needs each week: shelter, light and heat. After going through some ups and downs that come with launching a new program, we are motivated and looking forward to what growth and challenge 2017 will bring.


Street Life takes place most Fridays at Yorkson Creek Middle School from 6 - 8pm. The program is geared towards students Grades 6-8. We have been grateful for the weekly volunteers that join us from Trinity Western University, as well as the students from our Momentum program.

- Megan Adam

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Changing Seasons

-
Image
As we move into the fall, we move into a new phase for the Langley Youth Unlimited team. This past winter saw a significant decrease in our funding. This led to a shift in staffing hours and caused us to refocus. As we took into account staff hours and the finances available to our team, we felt it was necessary to take a step back from how we had been doing things.

What does this mean?

As we go into the fall, we will be turning our focus primarily to our work in two Langley schools, working to build relationships with staff and students. By working in the schools, we are meeting youth where they are and entering into their day to day lives. This consistent presence helps to build up trust as these youth see our staff on a regular basis.

The relationships that begin at the school often grow into time outside of the school. Although these hangouts can often appear surface level and like way too much fun, they are actually necessary building blocks for deeper connections. In working si…
Read more

Renewed Vision

-
Image
One evening after putting my kids to bed and tidying the house I finally got a chance to sit. As I did, my vision suddenly turned into an array of bright shapes and colors, as if I was viewing the world through a kaleidoscope. I was able to make my way to bed and fall asleep. The next day everything seemed fine.Losing vision is a scary thing. I have an elderly neighbor I visit often who faces blindness more and more each day. It affects independence, safety and perception. While this incident only lasted a short time for me, his experience was echoing through my mind and I knew I should get things sorted out.
I checked in with my eye doctor. She told me, after an examination, that I’d experienced an ocular migraine. She informed me that unless I took steps to reduce my stress I’d likely have more frequent and severe reactions. My family doctor confirmed this and showed high concern for my health in this season. Stress is a normal part of life and while I work hard at caring for my phy…
Read more

One Night Out

-
Image
As the summer comes to a close, and things shift gear into the fall season, I felt it would be good to send out another update and let you all know a few things that have been going on, as well as a quick update on the summer.

This summer was a wild ride of ups and downs. I had the opportunity to take youth to do a lot of different things and feel like I definitely had my fill of slurpees. From the waterslides to a baseball game, we experienced a lot. Although fun happened, many of my days were also filled with sitting in the park having all sorts of different discussions with youth. Some were about hope, some about anxiety, making hard choices, dealing with loss and grief, and some about finding resources for difficult situations coming up in their lives. A few conversations were around trying to find housing or a safe place to stay for the night. There was a lot of uncertainty and fear so I am happy I could provide them with a listening ear to ease some of their burden.

One evening …
Read more