Each month, Thurston Community Media (TCMedia)’s Mission Nonprofit connects with local organizations and agencies that positively impact our communities. In September 2024, Mission Nonprofit host Deborah Vinsel sat down with TOGETHER! co-executive directors Kahlo Flores and Sierra Abrams.
“Together started in 1989 and it was a beautiful initiation to really help youth come out of harmful situations and have support, that was sort of the macro perspective of it, to get this support system for students so that they can progress and have a beautiful future,” shares Kahlo. “So community members came together during that time to really start this.” The focus back then was drug prevention in youth.
35 years later, TOGETHER! still works on drug prevention and promoting health, but has evolved to continue to work with and help the community in the best way possible. “Now our programming is more community-led and community-inspired,” explains Sierra.
Thurston TOGETHER’s Programs
TOGETHER has three programs that help our local youth: Club House, Host Homes and Community Schools.
Club House is a partnership with North Thurston Public Schools to offer in-person support for kids. During the Club House time, kids may kid help with homework or participate in enrichment activities and physical movement. Food is also available to kids during this time. The Club House also helps families with materials including school supplies and books, and other resources including emergency assistance. Community partners this year include Puget Sound Estuarium, Youth Service of America, Haki Farmers Collective, SafePlace, Bridge Music Project, and many more. “Beautiful and magical things about Club House is it’s about youth voice, youth advocacy and then really meeting the needs of the whole child, which brings in family,” shares Kahlo. About 200 students are served annually at the different sites.
Community Schools is a partnership with Tumwater School District and local organizations including churches, Rotary Clubs, nonprofits and others to manage and maintain physical and mobile pantries with food and other necessities families need. This program is also available through the Club House program.
Host Homes is a community-based, short-term housing solution for local unaccompanied high school students in the North Thurston and Tumwater school districts. “The homelessness issue is a crisis and youth are no exception to that,” shares Seirra. “Unaccompanied youth are youth that do not have a parent or a guardian or adult in their life to care for them for lots of different reasons…There’s community members who are willing to open their homes and host students for anywhere from a few months to during the school year or longer.” The youth, ages 13-21, choose to be in the program and apply, they can also leave the problem any time they wish, which makes it different than foster care.
For more information, watch the full video above or visit the TOGETHER! website.
You can watch Mission Nonprofit on channel 22 on Sundays at 3:30 p.m., Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., and Saturdays at 10 a.m. You can also watch on TCMedia website, Video On-Demand or our Roku channel. To learn more about what TCMedia does, visit the Thurston Community Media YouTube channel or the TC Media website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
