YSS awarded Lived Experience Grant from Youth Villages

Des Moines, Iowa – YSS, one of Iowa’s oldest and largest youth-serving nonprofit organizations, has been awarded a 2024 Lived Experience Impact Grant from Youth Villages. YSS is one of eight organizations from across the nation to receive an award.

YSS provides shelter, residential, community-based and professional services to Iowa youth and their families. The organization offers a variety of programs to help young people improve their physical and emotional well-being, address the debilitating effects of abuse, addiction, and trauma, and build the skills and connections they need to be successful. YSS will use this grant to establish workforce development programming in conjunction with a sustainable farming initiative that will employ child welfare and juvenile justice involved youth participating in programs at its Iowa Homeless Youth Center in Des Moines.

“We’re excited to award YSS a Lived Experience Impact grant to support the launch of their Rooftop Garden initiative,” said Catherine Smith, Youth Villages BPP managing director. “We share a common goal of supporting young people as they make the transition to adulthood. We look forward to partnering with YSS and its respective leaders who will bring invaluable lived expertise and important perspective. Together, we will have an even greater positive impact on services and outcomes for transition-age young people across the country.”

The grants support organizations led by individuals with lived experience in child welfare systems who are improving outcomes for transition-age young people through programming, advocacy and systems reform. The grants to YSS was $25K and will be used for workforce development for transition-age youth.

More than 30 organizations from across the country applied for the grants. After a thorough evaluation process that included application reviews by Youth Villages staff and its Lived Experience Corps members (more than 50% of the grant committee had lived experience in child welfare systems) and oral presentations from the top 12 scoring organizations, the grants were awarded to eight organizations from across the country.