Volunteering Organization Gives At-Risk and Disabled Youths a Sense of Empowerment

Evan Burg knows he’ll have to live on his own soon.

Burg has autism, and at 23 years old he still lives with his parents. Having his own apartment, buying his own groceries and becoming active in the community might have seemed like a farfetched dream a few years ago, but with YouthAbility, Burg said he now thinks he has the tools to turn that dream into a reality.

“It’s really helped me a lot,” he said. “I’m 23 and to be at that age it’s showing me that I can do some stuff for myself and you know, at some point I’m going to be on my own and take care of some stuff myself, and this is the reason why I’m in YouthAbility.”

YouthAbility, a program sponsored by in Beachwood, places teens and young adults into volunteerism opportunities, either at other nonprofits or through JFSA itself. Participants, who range in age from 14 to 26, are exclusively those with disabilities or are considered at-risk, including first-time offenders who judges hope can be rehabilitated through the program.

Heidi Solomon, the program’s coordinator, said participants are placed into volunteering opportunities based on their talents and skill level. Some students from the at-risk category who were skilled in art recently finished painting a mural at the Cleveland Free Clinic in a classroom for alcohol and drug diversion programs.

“What I hope is they have a meaningful, enriching experience,” she said. “Sometimes they have a concept that they’re going to put on an orange vest and pick up trash at the side of a road. Normally I say, ‘If that is very enriching to you we could do that,’ but for most people it doesn’t give them a sense that they’re an important part of the community.”

The YouthAbility tagline is “Empowering Youth Through Service,” which Solomon said is exactly what the program does for both groups of participants.

What they volunteer in varies depending on what’s going on that time of year, she said, but it’s always something that’s both enriching to them and the community. Some activities include spending the day helping Holocaust survivors, working on a trail at the Cuyahoga County MetroParks or even putting on a play for local senior centers.

On Tuesday, June 28, some volunteers and YouthAbility staff will be teaming up with Cleveland Crops and the to sell fresh produce at the JCC from 5 to 7 p.m. Cleveland Crops creates farms out of abandoned inner-city areas and employs people with disabilities to work on the farms.

Last week, about 16 volunteers went on a trip to Chicago where they performed their play at local senior centers and introduced themselves to city officials to explain the benefits of such a program.

Solomon said they take trips like these, almost always to places within a six- or seven-hour driving distance, at least once a year.

“It’s valuable to take the kids on a trip because the goal is positive youth development and empowerment,” she said. "They learn a lot of skills from traveling.”

Other cities benefit from seeing the program, too, because there aren’t many like it across the country, Solomon said. YouthAbility began in 2001 from a 10-city grant offered by the federal government’s volunteerism arm, The Corporation for National Service. At the time it was mainly for students involved during the school year, and was not as multifaceted as it is now, she said.

The grant expired after three years, and JFSA received another grant to continue the program in its current incarnation in 2005, bringing on Solomon to lead it.