Jior Cameron

CaptionYo! members and staff take time out during the celebration last Friday. Top Row: Yoisy Barrios, Youth Advisory Board member; Bernadette Enriquez, Youth Advisory Board member; Jay Jones, Youth Advisory Board Supervisor. Bottom Row: Ashley Albert, Youth Advisory Board member; Dessirey Jackson, Youth Advisory Board member; Shea Hopfauf, Yo! Program Coordinator; and Danee Eason, Yo! Employment Specialist.Last Friday, Youth Opportunity Movement (Yo!) Seattle hosted a congratulatory celebration for Yo! students at the South Lake Union Naval Reserve Building. Yo! is a national program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor aiming to help young students ages 14 to 21 graduate from high school, earn their GED, attend college, trade school, and or technical school, learn job skills, and earn long term employment. Yo! helps participants through: case management, career counseling, education and training referrals, job information/placement, skills training placements, service coordination support, cultural/recreational activities, academic tutoring, mentoring/community service, and leadership development.Yo! has 2500 youth system wide with branches across the nation. The Columbia City branch has approximately 30-40 youth on the roster and is headed by Shea Hopfauf, Program Coordinator, Danee Eason, Employment Specialist, and ten other staff members. Unfortunately, the five-year grant will expire in June of this year. Yo! students will be out of a program and Yo! staff will be out of jobs. Currently, the staff and participants are trying to find other sources of funding to resume their efforts with a similar program. The staff wants to ensure that the current students finish a similar program, and that future students will have the opportunity the current ones have. With the expiration of the funding, Hopfauf and Eason hope students will be able to continue their progress. “We hope that the kids are able to transition. We want them to be able to find the consistency that they have here with the staff and their peers [when the center closes]. They’ve come too far to give up.” Perhaps current Yo! Columbia City student Ashley Albert summed up the Yo! mission best through her experience, “Yo! has given me the tools, the ability, and the knowledge to know what I want to do in life.”