Elevate Youth Services

08/25/2025

This is our last post. We believe social media platforms—especially Facebook and Instagram—are designed to keep youth addicted, insecure, and commodified. We won’t be part of that pipeline anymore.

Instead of pouring our energy into algorithms, we’re putting it into people:

Youth spaces like our Basement Teen Center

Zines full of art, poetry, and resources

Email newsletters and updates

In-person events that prioritize trust over clicks

We’re choosing connection over engagement. We invite other youth-serving organizations to join us. Together, we can build something healthier, slower, and more human.

This page will remain open for wayfinding, but it will no longer be updated. To stay connected, visit www.elevateyouthvt.org and sign up for our newsletter.

Enough scrolling. Time to show up.

08/24/2025

Likes ≠ lives.
Follows ≠ friends.
Engagement ≠ belonging.

We’re choosing something different. Tomorrow, everything changes.

08/18/2025

We could keep scrolling. Or we could stop and ask: what’s this doing to us?
For youth, endless feeds mean endless ads, endless comparison, endless noise.

We think there’s another way. Stay tuned.

08/11/2025

There’s something truly beautiful unfolding at the former Goddard College campus—and Elevate Youth Services is at the heart of it. Now, a shelter for homeless young adults has opened its doors on the campus, doubling our capacity to offer safe space, connection, and healing when it’s needed most. In the words of our Executive Director Favor Ellis, these homes allow youth to “regulate their nervous systems and have a moment to pause and breathe” as they figure out what comes next. We’re honored to be part of this inspiring chapter in Plainfield’s story of rebuilding and renewal. Check out the full story on WCAX to see how community, creativity, and care are shaping a brighter future.

Read more:

The future of the Goddard College campus in Plainfield is coming into focus a year after the former college shut down and was sold to a New Hampshire developer.

08/04/2025

You deserve to take up space.
You deserve to lead.
You deserve to be seen—exactly as you are.

Vermont’s own Rep. Becca Balint is the first woman and first openly LGBTQ+ person to represent our state in Congress. In her interview with Teen Vogue, she said:

“You don’t have to change who you are to be worthy of being seen.”

Read that again. Then tattoo it on your heart.

To every q***r, trans, questioning, or just-figuring-it-out youth in Vermont:
You are not too much. You are not alone. And you absolutely belong here.

Thank you, , for showing up in full color—and reminding our youth what’s possible.

📰 Full article at
🔗 https://www.teenvogue.com/story/becca-balint

08/03/2025

🧠💔 42%.

That’s how many LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered su***de in the past year. Not because of who they are—but because of how the world responds to them.

Discrimination. Rejection. Bullying. Silence.
It adds up. And it becomes unbearable.

Visibility isn’t enough. Kindness isn’t enough.
We need real support systems. We need inclusive mental health care. We need safe adults. We need communities that don’t just tolerate LGBTQ+ youth—but fight for them.

💬 Ask them how they’re doing.
🎓 Make schools safe.
🏡 Make home safe.
🛑 Don’t wait until it’s too late.

They don’t need to be braver. We need to be better.

08/02/2025

✨ 5,128 nights.

That’s how many times Elevate Youth Services opened a door, made a bed, and offered safety to a young person with nowhere else to go in 2024.

That’s 5,128 nights where a youth wasn’t sleeping in a car.
Wasn’t couch-surfing.
Wasn’t left out in the cold.

🏡 Instead—they had warmth.
🔑 A room.
💙 Support.
And most importantly: hope.

Youth homelessness is real in Washington County. But so is community. So is compassion. So is Elevate.

📍 Thank you to everyone who makes this possible—and to every young person who walks through our doors with courage.

08/01/2025

📢 1 in 3 LGBTQ+ students feels unsafe at school simply for being who they are.

Not for breaking rules.
Not for causing harm.
But for existing openly in their truth.

Let that sink in.

Safety in schools shouldn't depend on silence, invisibility, or "fitting in." It should be a given—for every student, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity.

We don’t need more rainbow posters.
We need policies. We need training. We need real allyship.
And we need it now.

🏳️‍🌈 Support q***r youth. Believe them. Protect them.

07/31/2025

✨ Meet Our Executive Director: Favor Ellis ✨

For 30 years, Favor has held space for and worked alongside homeless, runaway, and street-dependent youth, LGBTQ+ communities (q***r, trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive folks), and college students.

Her belief is simple but powerful:

“Our young people deserve more than survival. They deserve joy. Belonging. Futures built not on fear or scarcity, but on love and abundance.”

We’re honored to have her heart and leadership guiding Elevate Youth Services. 💛

07/30/2025

Youth homelessness isn’t a teenage rebellion problem—it’s a mirror reflecting where society breaks.

It’s poverty that keeps families one paycheck away from losing their home.
It’s abuse and trauma that push kids to run when staying feels impossible.
It’s foster care systems that cut ties at 18, leaving young adults with no safety net—handed a trash bag of belongings and told to “figure it out.”
It’s policies that fail to see youth as humans in crisis, treating homelessness as a personal failure instead of a systemic one.

This is a crack in society—not a flaw in young people.
And until we start fixing the root causes—housing shortages, underfunded mental health systems, and gaps in care—youth will keep slipping through.

At Elevate Youth Services, we’re working to fill those cracks with something stronger: belonging, safety, and community. Because no young person should have to survive a system that failed them.

07/29/2025

They’re not “just pronouns.” They’re identity. They’re safety. They’re survival.

Every time you ignore them, mock them, or “accidentally forget,” you’re sending a message: my comfort matters more than their existence.

Let’s be clear—pronouns aren’t the problem. Silence is.

Speak up. Get it right. Show up for q***r and trans youth like their lives depend on it—because they do. 🏳️‍⚧️