YWCA St. Paul’s Girls Emerge Collected Donations for Bridge for Youth

Our communities are struggling more than ever, and homeless rates are skyrocketing because of the pandemic and other factors. Every night, thousands of young people experience homelessness without a parent or guardian — and go to sleep without the safety, stability and support of a family or a home.

To help raise awareness about the growing youth homeless problem and to help address current needs, YWCA St. Paul’s Girls Emerge members recently collected donations for Bridge for Youth, a local non-profit organization that assists runaway and homeless youth, as a part of their service project. As a result of your generosity, Girls Emerge youth were able to donate more than 80 items that were needed most, including towels, baby items, laundry baskets and duffle bags.

At their year-end celebration, members of Girls Emerge packaged the items and wrote notes to the youth who will be receiving the donations. Additionally, at the celebration, the girls were joined by Julie Guggemos, Senior Vice President of Owned Brand Management and Product Design at Target, who talked about careers in design, in which girls of color are under-represented.

We thank all of the donors and Julie for making this a positive learned experience for the 2020 Girls Emerge cohort.

YWCA St. Paul’s Girls Emerge is a program that gives young women the opportunity to create community, affirm identity, explore careers and promote social justice through a racial and gender equity lens.

Girls Emerge participants explain their service project.