On Tuesday, April 15th, Makin’ It Happen hosted the first Youth Wellness & Prevention Showcase. This was made possible through the collaboration between Makin’ It Happen, Amoskeag Health, SNHU, and most importantly, the hard work of youth-serving organizations in the Manchester region!
The showcase was created to help youth organizations learn more about what their community partners were doing to help build community and support youth – a major goal of the Youth Wellness & Prevention Collaborative (YW&PC). In fact, the members of the YW&PC were the ones who requested a designated day solely focused on learning more about the many organizations in the region with different approaches, but similar goals.
10 organizations were chosen to present at the Showcase:
- City of Manchester, NH: Office of Youth Services
- Manchester Proud
- Girls at Work
- New Futures
- Shiloh Community Church: Ignite Youth
- NH Job Corps
- Webster House
- Manchester Police Department: Juvenile Unit
- SNHU Center for New Americans: Amiko Youth Program
- Manchester True Collaborative
In addition to learning more about what each of these initiatives offer to the region’s youth, it also helped attendees identify our community needs and recognize the many innovative programs that have been borne from the mission of delivering youth prevention. Thanks to a generous donation from SNHU, Makin’ It Happen was able to host this Showcase in one of their event spaces on South Commercial Street in Manchester – a space that was conducive to lots of networking and collaboration!
Here’s what some of the attendees had to say:
“It was great to learn more about the organizations, and it was awesome to meet and make connections with new people.”
“The showcase was the best use of my time. Everything was engaging!!”
“I appreciated being able to present at the Showcase because lots of other organizations approached me afterwards to collaborate in the future.”
“The Showcase had so much amazing information and was a much-needed, uplifting community event.”
Over 50 professionals across 28 organizations were involved in making the Youth Wellness and Prevention Showcase a success – we look forward to continuing our work of makin’ Manchester youth healthy and resilient!
For more information on the Youth Wellness & Prevention Collaborative, visit: https://www.amoskeaghealth.org/wellness-and-prevention-collaborative or email: [email protected].
Written by Janelle Havens | Recovery Ready Communities Director | 4/23/2025
