Our Story

In 2005, out of the need for educational resources and activities for youth living in the northeast San Fernando Valley, Youth Speak Collective hosted an eight-week seminar where students developed the idea for a community pocket garden. The seminar focused on community needs, grant writing, grassroots organizing and strategic planning. Youth applied these skills in transforming a dirt lot into a literacy garden. With the help of adult mentors, YSC youth members wrote a proposal which won a $10,000 grant for the garden from the City of Los Angeles Community Beautification Grant Program. YSC youth organized volunteer days to construct the garden that consisted of 12 trees, 300 plants, 3 benches, a mosaic trash can and stone border. After 650 volunteer hours and over $3,900 additional in-kind services and donations youth created a green space where community members can have a place to relax, read, and enjoy life. Evelyn Gomez, a YSC youth member, writes of her experience “After seeing many of my friends and myself turn to drugs as an alternative, I realize that the youth do have say in the way the community changes and evolves and I want it to be positive.”

Youth Speak Collective empowers “at-risk” youth to make social changes in their community through art, educational, recreational, entrepreneurial, and beautification opportunities. All young people who leave a positive mark on their community learn that they are competent and powerful. No one can ever take that self-knowledge away and this builds self-confidence and a real understanding that positive change is possible.