YLSBC believes that society flourishes when its members contribute to it selflessly and with passion. It is not the cause or reason for service but the intent behind it that is important. YLSBC has partnered with other organizations to serve local and international communities. Information about those organizations can be found below.
Our youth are always ready to engage in community outreach programs and actively participate in community events from time to time. Please enjoy the following slides shows of our youth taking part in various community events. The one on the left is from a Easter Egg Hunt and the one on the middle is from the Vancouver Sun Run and the last one is the concession stand at Odyssey of the Mind Provincial Championship.
Global Minds Group
Global Minds (GM) group is a team of YLSBC youth who are engaged in community Service. This group thinks global but acts local with a mission “We Care, We Share, We Change”. This vision is reflected in the logo desgined by the youths themselves.
This group is entirely youth run and was initiated by Keerthana Kumar and Ronita Naicker’s family, joined by many others.
The Global Minds group executed a few challenging events in the past years. They organized a hiking challenge; Coquitlam Crunch Challenge in 2016 and 2017 to raise funds for local hot meals program and international clean drinking water program projects in Kenya run by the WE Charity. The youth also celebrated Canada 150 at the 2017 event. Please enjoy our event coverage video on Program Videos page.
The GM group organized a cultural night; Mosiac in 2018 to raise funds for local hot meals program and also for empowering impoverished women in India; a program run by the WE Charity. We raised over $1000 net for the two initiatives above. This event was entirely youth conceived, planned and executed. The Mosiac core team consisted of over 30 youth and over 100 people participated.
Please Visit the Program Videos page to watch more Videos of events hosted by the GM group.
The YLSBC youth continue to serve the community in many ways including the following:
Hot meals program:
Hope for Freedom Society
YLSBC has partnered with Coquitlam-based Hope for Freedom Society, which provides various outreach and professional services to support individuals and families who are challenged by family breakdown, illness, job loss, addiction, or poverty. YLSBC's members and their families have joined Hope for Freedom Society's Meals Program and regularly serve free hot meals. YLSBC youth celebrate festivals with the members of the community as their outreach activity.
Currently, this program remains suspended due to Covid-19.
Please contact us if you are interested in registering for this program.
Food Safe Community Service:
Prior to Covid-19 YLSBC had its own culinary team of parents and youth volunteers who obtained Food Safe certification. This team, along with other volunteers would prepare and serve snacks, meals at STF/YLSBC events and also Hot Meals program as above.
Rising youth - Taking it global:
YLSBC is implementing the community service projects supported by Canada Service Corps, through its community outreach organization TakingITGlobal (TIG) to provide grants under Rising Youth Community Grants. The grants are available to youth who want to support their community through a variety of youth-initiated projects. The goal of the program is to provide a platform for youth who are inspired with ideas and ready to implement those by accessing community service grants. There are three different grants; $250, $750, and $1500 that youth can apply for depending on the project idea. The program is currently closed for grant application.
Despite Covid-19 restrictions, YLSBC youth while following all protocols, have completed several community service projects utilizing this grant. Please read our Annual Report 2020 for more details.
Any BC youth 15-30 years old who has a great community service project idea and is seeking funds to move forward can contact us here. We will communicate when the grant application is open again.
Testimonials
“When I first joined YLSBC, I had thought that I would be part of programs only designed to enhance my academics. Soon enough, I found out that not only would I be taking a step forward in education but also, I had the chance to be a valuable asset to my community. I seized the opportunity and took part in a soup kitchen where I and others from YLSBC prepared and served food to those in need. From there, I went on and volunteered at the Sun Run; YLSBC was part of the radio and communications team. I hope to take part in more events such as these and give back to my community.”