YouthCare was honored to host A Way Home Washington’s launch of the Anchor Community Initiative yesterday at YouthCare’s Orion Center. We heard powerful personal stories from two young people, Azia and Roel, as well as inspiring remarks from Jim Theofelis, First Lady Trudi Inslee, State Senator Maureen Walsh, and many others. More than one hundred people packed a very hot Orion Center—all dedicated to the core principle that no young person should ever have to sleep outside.
At the end of the program, Mike McReady and Stone Gossard from Pearl Jam made an unprecedented announcement: they would be donating $1.3 million toward efforts to end youth homelessness in Washington State.
As Jim Theofelis, the Executive Director of A Way Home Washington said,
“We’re not interested in managing youth homelessness. We’re interested in preventing and ending youth homelessness.”