Elevate Youth Services

08/13/2026

What happens when a place that helped define a community disappears?

A recent The Christian Science Monitor story about the former Goddard College campus asks a question that feels especially important in Central Vermont: when something meaningful is lost, what can a community imagine in its place?

Strong communities need places to gather, learn, create, stumble, connect, and belong.

Sometimes that place is a college. Sometimes it’s a library, an arts space, a community organization or simply somewhere a young person can walk through the door and know they are seen.

At Elevate Youth Services, we believe place matters. Belonging matters. For young people navigating housing instability, family conflict, isolation, or the complicated work of growing up, having somewhere to go can change what feels possible.

The future of rural Vermont may depend less on preserving every institution exactly as it was, and more on asking a better question:

What do our neighbors need now and what can we build together?

The story from Plainfield offers a hopeful example.

Read the full Christian Science Monitor piece at the link in our bio.

08/13/2026

What happens when a place that helped define a community disappears?

This thoughtful piece from The Christian Science Monitor looks at the closing of small colleges through the story of Goddard College and at what can happen when a community chooses not simply to mourn what was lost, but to imagine what could come next.

That feels especially relevant here in Central Vermont.

Strong communities are built around places where people can gather, belong, learn, experiment, stumble, create, and find one another. Sometimes those places are colleges. Sometimes they are libraries, arts spaces, community organizations or a place where a young person can walk through the door and know there is someone there who sees them.

At Elevate Youth Services, we believe physical spaces still matter. Belonging still matters. And particularly for young people navigating housing instability, isolation, family conflict, or simply the complicated work of growing up, having somewhere to go can change what feels possible.

The future of rural Vermont probably won't come from preserving every institution exactly as it was. It will come from communities being imaginative enough to ask: What do our neighbors need now and what can we build together?

This story from Plainfield offers some hopeful answers.

Small, private colleges in the U.S. are closing more often, depriving communities of resources and people. One Vermont town has a solution that could work for others.

08/07/2026

We’re in the news! 💛

Thank you to the The Times Argus for highlighting something we believe deeply: young people need places where they can simply be.

Safe places. Welcoming places. Places to find community, try something new, meet people who get them, or just spend a few hours without being expected to have everything figured out.

Creating useful spaces for young people isn’t just about giving them somewhere to go. It’s about belonging. It’s about connection. And it’s about building a community where young people know there are adults and neighbors who genuinely want them here.

Take a few minutes to read the story below. 👇

https://www.timesargus.com/news/local/making-safe-useful-spaces-for-local-youth-in-central-vermont/article_1af8eef7-2723-5018-b596-5f23259c3a51.html

Local youth will soon have more services available to them.

08/01/2026

🛍Exciting news! Elevate Youth Services has been selected for Hannaford Supermarkets Community Bag Program this August! Every time you purchase a $2.50 reusable Community Bag at the 456 South Barre Road location in Barre, VT, $1 is donatd directly to Elevate Youth Services💜

Consider stopping by and grabbing a community bag this month to support us!

07/31/2026

We’re honored to share that Elevate Youth Services has received a transformational $500,000 endowment gift from the Courtney and Victoria Buffum Family Foundation.

This gift is about so much more than dollars. It creates long-term stability for youth experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, ensuring that future generations of young people will continue to have access to shelter, support, counseling, outreach, and the resources they need to build healthy, independent lives.

To everyone who has believed in our mission, volunteered, advocated, donated, or stood beside our young people—thank you. This investment reflects what is possible when a community chooses to believe that every young person deserves safety, belonging, and hope.

Thank you to VTDigger for sharing our story.

Read the article here:

https://vtdigger.org/2026/07/30/vermont-nonprofit-sees-500000-gift-to-create-youth-homelessness-services-endowment/

Leadership at Elevate Youth Services in Barre said the gift provides welcome financial stability for the expanding nonprofit.

07/22/2026

What doing good looked like at the National Life Group Do Good Fest:

A generous $40,000 investment in Elevate’s mission.
A team proud to represent the work.
Thousands of neighbors gathered together.
Children laughing.
Bubbles filling the sky.
A reminder that community is not something we merely talk about—it is something we create together.

Thank you, National Life Group Foundation, for an unforgettable Do Good Fest and for helping Elevate continue building safety, connection and opportunity across Central Vermont.

07/21/2026

We stepped away from social media because we could no longer ignore the harm these platforms can cause young people. Now we are returning but not because those concerns have disappeared.

Read why we are coming back with clearer boundaries, a narrower purpose and no illusions about the platform itself.

On August 25, 2025, Elevate Youth Services stepped away from social media. We did not leave because it was ineffective. We left because it was effective at the wrong things: capturing attention, intensifying emotion and turning human behavior into advertising revenue. These platforms are designed t

07/21/2026

On August 25, 2025, Elevate Youth Services stepped away from social media.

We did not leave because it was ineffective. We left because it was effective at the wrong things: capturing attention, intensifying emotion and keeping people engaged for profit. For an organization supporting young people already navigating anxiety, harassment, social comparison and the pressure to perform their lives for an audience, that contradiction became impossible to ignore.

Those concerns have not gone away.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Meta’s attempt to stop Vermont’s lawsuit from moving forward. The case alleges that Meta knowingly designed Facebook and Instagram in ways that encouraged compulsive use among young people while minimizing the risks. Meta denies the allegations, and no court has ruled that the company is liable. The Supreme Court’s decision simply means Vermont is allowed to continue making its case.

So why are we returning?

Because leaving social media did not change how these platforms work. It did, however, make Elevate harder to find.

Families looking for help, community partners, donors and people who care about young people increasingly look for information here. We also missed sharing the joy, courage, humor and humanity that exist alongside the hard parts of our work.

We are returning with a narrower purpose and clearer boundaries.

Social media is not our community. It is not our mission.

We are returning because the people who may need us and who we need are still here—and because being present does not require us to stop being critical.