Volunteer: A Path to Success and a Happy Life

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By Sara Wainwright

Gather around... gather around. Welcoming you for the first time, a play presenting the residents of NYEP!

 “I am bored, I am spending to much time at the house."

    “Have you ever thought of volunteering?” 

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When a resident begins our program at NYEP, a lot is asked of them. NYEP is not easy, it helps to drive the residents to become pro-active about their lives. One of the requirements at NYEP is that every resident must volunteer with a non-profit organization. Volunteering is viewed as a job. Each resident is matched up to a volunteer site that would interest them, a place where they will succeed. 
This week we had a Volunteer Play. The residents role played on situations they would encounter while volunteering, how to be a good volunteer, and how volunteering can enhance their lives.

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  "Why do you think volunteering is important?”

 Responses:

“It helps others”

“Learn new skills”

“meet new people, and develop relationships”

“To give back”

So why is volunteering important and required at NYEP? 

Volunteering offers our residents to have work experience, learn new skills, meet new people, receive a reference, and get a job. After volunteering we hope that our residents will have a resume built up, have work experience, and ideally be offered a job at the site they volunteered at. Most importantly, they will learn about oneself. 

This is the first volunteer class that NYEP has held, and although some of the residents already knew most of the information, they commented that they all benefited from the class and learned new information on volunteering.

Volunteer Sites the residents are currently volunteering with are Daybreak, Head Start, and The Discovery Museum. They have already developed good relationships with the staff at these locations. Relationships that will last, and impact their lives. 

As the residents take a bow from their fantastic performance we end the day with an understanding of how volunteering impacts lives, and most importantly they have an interest in volunteering. 

Want to learn more about NYEP’s Volunteer Program please visit NYEP’s website here

Nights of the Square Table

by:  Kacey Maher

It's a simple ritual.

A well-balanced meal, familiar faces around the dining room table, wrapping up the day with conversations ranging from the ridiculous to the profound...

It's a simple ritual...one that most people take for granted growing up.  And one that many 17-year-old girls would most likely prefer to avoid.

At the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project, however, family dinners are just one of the many programs in place to restore a sense of normalcy and community into the lives of homeless girls who may have never experienced the simple pleasure of having a loved one ask about their day.

It's a practical process, overall.  The residents at NYEP, six girls ranging from age 17-24, are assigned cooking days throughout the week.  They plan the meals, make the grocery lists, and buy the necessary ingredients with funds provided both through their own rent payment and scholarship funding.  When family dinner night rolls around, the assigned chef is meant to have dinner on the table between 5:30 and 6 and, unless an excuse is provided to staff members, all the girls are meant to attend.


The night I visited NYEP to witness their family dinner, it was a Wednesday in early October.  The cook that night was Michelle, a senior at McQueen High School and the newest member of the NYEP family.  It was, I was soon to learn, only her second time cooking.  Ever. 



From the outside, the NYEP house is just that, a house.  In the middle of a Reno residential neighborhood, there is no sign announcing it as a homeless shelter.  There are no tent camps, there are no lines, there are no desperate, broken faces.  Instead, there is an overwhelming sense of hope.  There is warmth and there is love.  Enter the NYEP house and there is no denying that it offers something so simple, yet so crucial, to the girls who live there.  It provides a home and, perhaps more importantly, it provides a family.

As I said before, it was a Wednesday in early October.  A couple of the girls had spent the day decorating the house for Halloween.  Caution tape and spider webs covered the front door through which I could hear the sounds of girl-talk and laughter.  As usual, I was greeted with a smile and led down a hallway now accoutered with multicolored spiders and skeletons.


That evening, the kitchen was full of warmth and activity.  Michelle, who had arrived at the shelter a month earlier, had decided to make chicken Teriyaki for her fellow residents.  It was to be her second attempt cooking for the house and the kitchen filled with giggles as she recounted her first meal.

"It was a disaster," Michelle said wryly, explaining that, after never having cooked before, she had attempted to make California rolls for everyone.  The others assured her it had just been a bit overly ambitious.

Michelle was joined at the stove by veteran resident and aspiring chef, Meisha, whose comfort in the kitchen contrasted sharply with Michelle's uncertainty.  Meisha was full of words of wisdom, guiding Michelle through the steps of the meal without hesitation.  Patiently, she showed Michelle how to work the can opener, how to boil rice without burning the bottom, how to make green beans, and how to stay organized by cleaning as you go.  In physical appearance, the two girls were as different as two humans can possibly be...but in that kitchen, they looked like family.

Dinner was beautiful.  The delicious smells of Michelle's success filled the whole house, along with the sounds of jokes and laughter.  Meisha and Michelle were joined around the table by fellow residents Hannah and Tricia, as well as by NYEP graduate, Tammy.  A few minutes into dinner, Michelle's boyfriend arrived for the meal, adding further meaning to the night's achievement.  Michelle, who aspires to become a nurse someday, occupied her spot at the head of the table, a big smile shining over a pile of steaming rice and chicken.

Ask the girls what they like best about the family dinners and they will all give about the same answer.  It's a chance for them to sit around and hear about everyone's day.  It's a chance to bounce problems and ideas off one another.  It's a chance to unwind and laugh with people they care about.  In the end, the family dinners are a simple ritual of just being a part of something good.

The six residents, and the numerous graduates, of the Nevada Youth Empowerment Project all arrive at the house victims of neglect and abuse.  Somewhere along the way, their biological families have let them down.  It is so easy, in that situation, to shut down and forget how to trust.  It is so easy to think of "family" as something that causes pain.  But what these girls also have in common is that they are unwilling to give up on themselves or on the world so easily.  They are united in their desire to overcome their pasts and create futures full of love and hope.  NYEP is merely a way-station on that journey, but it is an important one.  For many, family dinners are just routine.  For the girls of NYEP, they are a second chance...


A second chance for themselves
...and a second chance at family.





Kacey Maher currently volunteers at NYEP as a tutor.  She is also helping the organization create a donor video.

For more information on NYEP or to donate, visit their website at http://nvyep.org/ or email Executive Director Monica DuPea at monica.nyep@gmail.com