Anaheim Youtopia

I'm emerging from the five most difficult years of my life and somehow I find myself grateful for the experience. My life has been progressing in a long decline since getting cancer and for a while, it seemed like nothing was going to get better for me. I lost everything I ever worked for or cherished... then the pandemic hit. I know it was horrifying and continues to be for a lot of people but for me, a chronically ill and disabled person, it felt like every human around the globe was now on a more level playing field. One thing led to another and I realized I was in an extremely unique position and may never get such an opportunity again. I founded an online-hybrid community center for my city so my team and I can be who we needed when we were younger every day for the kids growing up here now. This money would make everything we dreamt up a real-life possibility. We would use this money to fully fund all of our services, accelerate our long term plans, create a couple of job opportunities, and begin our endeavor with a beautiful advantage. 

Our vision for Anaheim Youtopia is to cultivate a free-thinking, thoroughly socialized, heavily supported, caring community of individuals. Our future goal is to create an epicenter out of Anaheim by placing specifically themed and easily accessible hubs all around the city. As part of our ecosystem, our members will be able to hone their potential and learn to live more harmoniously inside and outside of Youtopia. A great example of how we plan to accomplish this is through our House Farm initiative where we hope to save homes from foreclosure, assist in rehabilitating home owners so that they can overcome the obstacles that led them to foreclosure, and so we can begin a city-wide urban agriculture project by farming on any available land on the properties we save or the properties of those interested in joining the "farm." At this moment, the Anaheim Youtopia team is predominantly comprised of adults that grew up as disadvantaged youth in Anaheim. Honestly, that's one of the many reasons this is so important for us. We feel that we have a unique perspective, mindset, and set of gifts that are rare to come by which we can share with the city around us.

According to our initial research,

25.5% of Anaheim has Bachelor's degrees which is lower than Orange County's average of 40.6% - We created all of our services with this in mind to ensure that our kids have access to homework help 24/7, educational resources, positive role models, college scholarships, and that they be able to move forward with the life/social skills to thrive throughout college and on.

With a 15.2% poverty rate, Anaheim has a higher poverty rate than the county's average of 9.5%. This poverty rate is skewed a bit by the predominantly wealthy community of Anaheim Hills but it still reflects that there is a need for financial literacy and for a focus on filling in the gaps that poor communities struggle to overcome throughout their lives. Other than the proven benefits of socializing and having a sense of community, we created Life Hacks 101 to provide the youth with all the things we believe will better prepare them for the life ahead.

Anaheim has higher rates of substance abuse, hospitalization from substance abuse, young gang members, violence in schools, and harassment issues than the State. We believe that with real support the youth may be able to understand respect, caring, and will feel seen for who they are and not what society prefers them to be. Equipped with these understandings, our hope is that we'll be able to help troubled youth gain emotional cognizance and a desire to protect and have compassion for themselves and those around them.

Anaheim also has some of the highest rates of childhood obesity and there is a proven lack of information and investment in addressing social determinants of health and health disparities. The system can be difficult to navigate due to lack of information, inadequate navigation assistance, and poor health literacy in the population, especially for vulnerable populations. So we built lesson plans into Life Hacks 101, will provide resources, put nutrition education at the forefront of our Cooking 101 program, will teach kids how to cook inexpensive yet nutritious meals in proper portions, and hopefully help them better understand their bodies and how to care for them.

Thanks to the cyber communication revolution propelled by 2020, we provide our services predominantly live via telecommunication so that disabled and chronically ill youth can participate in the same way as an abled bodied youth can. This way they are integrated, safe, and feel like they're part of a community even if it's from their hospital bed. It also gives all of the youth the opportunity to learn from each other and cultivate a true sense of understanding for others circumstances by removing the initial confusion or judgement that can be experienced at first sight of someone "different." Also, to mention again, all of our services were created to directly address the prominent issues within Anaheim. In Anaheim, we currently have several nonprofits that are historic giants in youth support but in terms of disabled and disadvantaged youth, their programs aren't designed with the specific needs of the populations they serve in mind unlike Anaheim Youtopia. Though there definitely is a place for YMCA and Boys & Girls Club, we are focused more on the kids that they are undeserving.

It all begins with thorough research. Our research phase helped us pinpoint and define issues we feel capable of addressing and changing. The final step is to source funds. The Anaheim Youtopia team is currently comprised of individuals with years of experience in supporting the youths that we will be working with. We have no doubts about our ability to positively impact the kids lives, Anaheim, and, by default, anywhere else that our kids may venture to. It really comes down to sourcing money and financial opportunities where we can prove our method and generate the initial ripple in our hometown that will ultimately lead to waves.