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Welcome To YASO
What is YASO? YASO stands for Young Adults Speak Out.
Okay, we’ve told you the full name, but still haven’t gotten to what it is. YASO is a safe place for teens and young adults to express themselves and be themselves without anyone to judge them and tell them they are not good enough.
- YASO meets in what we call Gatherings every other Saturday. The Gatherings are kind of like a pizza party meets group therapy meets fight club, but it doesn’t suck. Each gathering has a topic. The topics are stuff we don’t get to talk about it school, church, or at home, but should get to talk about. When we talk about these things we don’t have adults putting the usual “after school special” you’re used to hearing, we let you talk. Some past topics:
- Cutting
- Bullying
- Abuse
- Eating Disorders
- Poverty
- The Future
- etc.
After we are done talking, we then hang out for about an hour. During that time you can talk to an adult or a peer counselor about something bothering you or just spend time with your friends. It’s up to you.
But there is more to YASO then just the Gatherings. We want our voice to be heard. We do this with activism and volunteerism. We bring awareness to bullying, sexual harassment, abuse, the environment, and many other topics that matter to the teens and young adults in our group.
But we cannot do it alone. We do everything we can to make sure your message and voice are heard by members of the community, politicians, ministers, and other people who need to hear our stories.
Not everything we do is serious though. Sometimes we have random field trips to things like concerts, every season we have a themed dance, and we also do lock ins, retreats, and we even have our own prom to ensure people of all educational backgrounds and orientations can enjoy themselves.
YASO meets every other Saturday from 7 to 10 PM
604 E 9th Street
Lockport Il
815-905-0185
So to sum up,
- YASO is a safe place
- YASO is being myself
- YASO is speaking out
- YASO is changing things
- YASO is fun
- YASO is all this and so much more
Look, it is hard to describe YASO, you just have to see it. So please come and see us. If you think it sucks, at least the pizza and soda was free.