A Gallatin High School Senior is Raising Awareness about the Fast-Growing Crisis Facing Young Adults in Southwest Montana

Last year, HRDC provided services to 125 teens and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who were facing housing insecurity through its Blueprint Continuum program, double the amount served the year prior. Designed with an empowerment mindset, participants are provided with an array of tools to create achievable goals while gaining knowledge and resources to successfully navigate into adulthood through work experience, focused direction, and inspiration.

“We are very proud of our Blueprint program and our successful history over the past decade in supporting youth who are experiencing homelessness or who do not have a fixed, regular or adequate nighttime residence. Unfortunately, we’ve continued to see an increase in the number of students who find themselves in vulnerable housing situations across Gallatin Valley, and it is only with the financial support of our community that we can help keep teens and young adults safe and in school while helping them prepare well for adulthood,” said Jeremy Alcoke, HRDC’s Blueprint Continuum supervisor.

Alcoke continued, “When Emersen York approached us with her idea to raise both awareness and money in support of our program, we jumped on board immediately. Not only is she serving as a role model for other students who wish to make a difference, her fundraising efforts help amplify everything we are doing to help young people with nowhere else to turn. We couldn’t be more grateful for Emersen and her commitment to our organization.”

York, a senior at Gallatin High School, was motivated to find a way to make a difference in her community as she began to formulate a plan for her senior project. As a small business owner in a joint venture with her sister that creates and sells crocheted animals on Etsy, York chose to partner with a local small business, Montana Shirt Company, to help her gain knowledge about growing a business from the ground up. Together, they developed a community outreach plan which included creating a t-shirt that could be used to raise awareness of a community issue with proceeds from t-shirt sales going to a nonprofit of her choice. When she learned about Blueprint and the critical support it provided to other teens, she reached out to Alcoke to pitch her fundraising support. The final details fell into place with the help of Jared Goering, President at Montana Shirt Company, who helped York with a t-shirt design that includes an outline of the state of Montana with the word “cares” incorporated into the simple, but inspiring message.

“I honestly didn’t know about the homeless youth issue in my community. It hit home with me because I’m a teen too, which made me care about other teens struggling with their basic needs. I believe all kids deserve the chance to be cared about and feel loved. I felt like if I don’t know about this issue, then there are a lot of other people that don’t know about it either. The bottom line is that I wanted the community outreach portion of my senior project to be something that had a big impact on helping kids my age that are homeless and struggling while also bringing more awareness to this problem in my community," explained York when asked why the work of Blueprint spoke to her so directly.

As for supporting Emersen in her small business start-up and fundraising project, Goering has this to say, “We at Montana Shirt Company love supporting our local Montana community any way we can. When Emersen approached us with a project to help a local nonprofit in the Bozeman area, we loved the idea and opportunity.”

For a limited time, Montana Cares t-shirts are available for purchase for $28 with the net proceeds ($18) going directly to Blueprint. The shirts are available in person at Montana Shirt Company located at 127 E. Main Street in Bozeman, or online at https://www.montanashirtco.com/products/montana-care

 

York, Alcoke, and Goering are quite pleased with the initial results of the Montana Cares t-shirt sales which netted $726 for HRDC’s Blueprint Continuum program on the first day they were offered to the public.

 

York is an honors student and hopes to attend the University of Hawaii to earn a degree in business. “I’m an entrepreneur at heart! My senior project further demonstrated to me that with creativity and determination, I can build a successful business and make a difference in my community at the sametime.”

 

For more information about HRDC’s Blueprint program, visit https://thehrdc.org/emerging-adults/young-adult-housing/

 

The Montana Shirt Company is dedicated to creating insanely comfortable, highly durable, and well-designed products that represent the last best place. Learn more at https://www.montanashirtco.com/

 

As a private, not-for-profit Community Action Organization focused on building a better community through its nearly 50 initiatives, HRDC combats poverty in southwestern Montana and believes everyone deserves the opportunity to be financially stable. Donors, volunteers, and community members can find out what we have in common at https://thehrdc.org/