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Thank you for being a part of Odyssey Youth Movement and helping to promote equity for LGBTQ+ youth right here in the Inland Northwest. Please continue to support our mission by making a donation today! Donate HERE
This spring, as area schools prepared to close buildings to instruction, Odyssey quickly shifted our model of program delivery from our in-person, brick and mortar center to an all digital format. Since mid-March, Odyssey has continued to offer four nights of drop-in programming each week, entirely online. Digital Drop-In consists of the same familiar Odyssey traditions such as nightly check-ins and youth-led programs. Youth participate in programs such as healthy relationships and safer sex workshops, creative programs like LGBTQ+ movie nights, and skills building programs like fact checking the media and how to stand in solidarity as an ally. These programs have aimed to create a safe, digital space for youth participants to learn, grow, and be challenged.
As a new school year begins, many forms of support and extracurricular activities (like clubs) that our youth have traditionally engaged in are either facing uncertain futures or have been cancelled entirely. This makes community-based after school programs like Odyssey Youth Movement, all the more important for the health and safety of young people in our community. Odyssey has risen to this need by creating additional ways for youth to connect outside of drop-in hours, including a youth Discord (an online chat site) and a major expansion of our Basic Needs Program. With the support of community members like you, we can now offer physically distant porch deliveries of food, bus passes, and hygiene supplies, as well as gender-affirming clothes and compression chest binders for all Odyssey participants. Odyssey does this while navigating the reality that many LGBTQ+ youth and young adults are living in homes where they are not affirmed for who they are.
Odyssey and Spokane’s LGBTQ+ youth need you. We need you to INVEST in a thriving future for LGBTQ+ youth throughout the Inland Northwest. You can do so by donating securely online at odysseyyouth.org/supportoym. Please give today and be a part of the movement as we continue to work through this pandemic and the necessity of physical distancing to meet the needs of our LGBTQ+ youth.
Yours in community,
Odyssey Youth Movement
