Focus on Youth Mission Statement

Our mission is to empower at-risk-youth through photography and mentoring while providing them with creative outlets to make positive choices in their lives.

Can you spare 2 minutes? Please watch this short video to find out how FOY makes a difference.

Click here for higher quality version of the video.

What We Do…

For the past nine years Focus on Youth has been putting cameras in the hands of low-income high risk youth and we have seen them transformed by the experience.   Focus on Youth uses photography to empower culturally and ethnically diverse teens by providing them with creative outlets to make positive changes in their lives.  We collaborate with professional photographers, schools and community organizations developing projects that engage students’ imagination and creativity while building their confidence and self-worth.

Focus on Youth nurtures creativity, promotes leadership skills, encourages success and profoundly transforms the lives of our students and our participants.

Why We Do It…

This remarkable letter, written by a student with her mother, describes how many of our students feel about their mentors and the program (though after our classes they are usually better at saying it visually than verbally). Two of the photos are portraits our Spring 2012 class with New Avenues for Youth students took of each other, the third is a “self-portrait” statement by Keenen about who he sees himself to be………

Our lives were shut off…Some blinded by heartbreak…
Others standing alone in a colorless world.
Some suffering in silence, scared to speak, yet longing to be heard…
Others, hiding in the shadows, yet pleading to be seen….
Some searching for a hand to hold…others for a shoulder to cry on…
We all were praying for a miracle…a special sign to point the way…
Someone to show us how to fill the “empty frames” in our lives…
Then together you came…inviting us all into your circle of inspiration!

Breaking through our silence…you offered to share our dreams…
You showed us what we couldn’t see…and how to capture the moments!
To look for the miraculous…in places others miss.
How to write our own stories through a camera’s lens….
To trace our own journey, as each new exposure came into view…
Then, miraculously one click at a time…the shadows disappeared!
Clear new found images of light chased away our darkness…
Empty frames vanished…revealing instead new full impressions of life.

Through you all…our wise and trusted mentors…Our faithful friends…
You show us how to bring into focus…amazing images…
You taught us how to discover our own special legacy.
We found our voice in each landscape you helped us capture…
We were touched deeply by the passion and skills you shared…
Everyone changed forever by the visual autographs you left in our lives.
We feel honored to have been given this fresh glimpse of the world…
A chance to view the beauty of life through a photographer’s lens…
You are our heroes…We are your legacy…Please remember us all…
For…we are your best work yet!

Your personal photographs of hope!

Please like us on Facebook – we’re able to update that page much more often than the ones on this site… and we have many more marvelous photos… Focus on Youth Facebook

 If you’re not a Facebook user, we’d love to have you keep track of our activities by subscribing to our Focus On Youth Email Newsletter. We promise not to overload your mailbox, share your email, or keep sending them if you decide to unsubscribe. We also promise at least one beautiful image from one of our kids in every issue.