According to Chief Operations Officer Penny Wilson, the shelter offers temporary housing and support services for children ages 10-17. The recent expansions erected two buildings to accommodate a separate girls' and boys' shelter, essentially doubling the shelter's capacity to 30 beds in total.
"It gives us a whole house we can use for girls and another house for boys," Wilson said. "In each of those buildings, we're going to have two single bedrooms ... so, that's going to give us more flexibility as well to maximize our capacity."
Construction for the shelter began in late June 2019, as previously reported by Community Impact Newspaper, totaling $2.4 million. Wilson said the organization raised a total of $4.2 million to cover the cost of furniture, staff and other expenses. Of that funding, Yes to Youth received $1 million in donations and fundraising efforts and $1.4 million from the Montgomery County Community Development Block Grant.
"As soon as that grant became available, it really allowed us to dream bigger and think about how we could approach this. It really did open up our options," Wilson said.
Wilson said the shelter has plans to renovate its existing building, which will take two to three additional months to complete. These renovations include adding a dining hall, kitchen and other rooms. 936-890-1132. www.sayyestoyouth.org
