By Dan Aceto

Staff Writer

For Steve Yescott, a typical night at Scarborough’s Young Life meeting is like a “party with a purpose.”

Yescott is area director of Young Life, a worldwide organization with a mission to “introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ and help them grow in their faith.” The organization’s first club meeting of the year was held Monday. 

The program is geared toward “unchurched/uninterested kids.” It’s humorous in nature with games, skits and group sing-alongs to current pop music. 

Yescott will be the first to say that Young Life is not a traditional “religious organization.”

“We’re not tied to a specific church and we don’t force kids to join or attend church at all,” Yescott said. “At the end of each meeting we just like to give a simple five-minute message about God’s love for them and that’s it.”

Yescott said the organization primarily serves as a place where students can build friendships with trustworthy adults who will listen to and respect them as they deal with struggles of everyday life.

“These days a lot of kids turn to the media for advice. We try to be there as an adult they can have a friendship with and can talk to,” Yescott said.

Yescott said the program offers students a break from the hectic pace of everyday life and is an opportunity for participants to be themselves and have fun.

“The challenges facing high school kids today are unbelievable. Many kids feel hopeless about the future and that things aren’t going to get better – they’re going to get worse. A lot of kids are just so busy, they feel pressure to get good grades, build a resume, go to college, get a good job, buy a big house and just keep going, going and going,” Yescott said. “This is an opportunity to just kick back, relax and take a break. We try and help them find what really matters in life. Things like friendship, honesty and being a moral person, things that kids sometimes miss along the way.”

Yescott said many kids want to talk about issues in their life and to be heard and valued. He said programs such as the Young Life Club offer a time when they can come and drop their “mask” and be themselves. 

“A lot of kids say that this is the best night of their week,” Yescott said.

And students seem to agree.

Mariah Volk, a junior at Scarborough High School, said the best thing about the club is that it is “really relaxing and you can just be yourself.”

Volk, who took center stage during sing-alongs at the meeting, led students through acoustic renditions of such pop staples as: “Our Song” by Taylor Swift, “Soul Sister” by Train and “Wonderwall” by Oasis, much to the crowd’s delight.

Junior Jamie Rowe said that activities throughout the night are both fun and an “energetic way to learn about God.”

Beyond weekly club meetings, Young Life also holds an annual weeklong summer camp for students in Saranac, N.Y., as well as a weekend camp during fall. 

At camp students engage in a variety of activities from para-sailing, rope courses and water-skiing, to an all-out shaving cream fight and girls vs. boys football game, where boys have to play on their knees.

Katie Mader, a junior, said, “the atmosphere is very welcoming.”

“The best way to describe a Young Life weekend at camp would be, ‘controlled chaos,’” Yescott said.

For those who are more interested in learning about the teachings of God, Young Life also offers a program called “Campaigners,” that delves into deeper discussions on excerpted texts from the Bible.

Yescott said Young Life is attended by more than a million students a week across the country. He said the organization has approximately 5,000 clubs throughout the nation and is represented in more than 50 countries around the world. In Maine there are programs in Gorham, Freeport, Yarmouth and Portland for the Casco Bay area. Since starting the program in Scarborough two years ago, Yescott said attendance has averaged in the 40s and 50s for weekly Monday club meetings and a total of 200 individual students who attended last year. 

“We’re there to build relationships with kids and to help counsel them through life. Parents want their kids to have a positive and healthy friendship with adults. (One of the questions we ask parents is) ‘Do you want 16 year olds to offer advice to 16 year olds or an adult?’ Adults like that idea, as long as it’s done in a healthy and safe way and we screen and do background checks on all our leaders,” Yescott said.

Josh Fournier, who is a leader in the Scarborough program along with his wife, Beth, said the program offers students an “alternative to the party lifestyle” and he has known several students who have used the program to better themselves from a life of drugs and criminal activity.

Beth Fournier said although she grew up Christian she never knew of a program like Young Life that was as open and welcoming to students.

“I like hanging out with the kids and being a role model for them,” Beth Fournier said. 

Yescott said he got into the program after he moved to Maine from Florida four years ago, where he had been a youth pastor for nearly 15 years. He heard about the Young Life organization and thought Scarborough would be a perfect community to get the program started.

“There has been a very positive response among the community. Parents of students that participate in club and other programs have noticed a change in their kid’s behaviors, in that they’ve become more considerate,” Yescott said.

Junior Natalie Brusie agreed and said “this is the first club I’ve been too, but I’m not worried to just jump in and join.”

Yescott said the club program will run for approximately six weeks, after which it will take a break until February and start up again until school lets out for summer.  

Although the Young Life organization has gained worldwide recognition, Yescott said sustaining a nonprofit program in today’s economy is no easy task.

“It’s definitely a struggle. We are 100 percent responsible to raise the budget,” Yescott said. “We’ve done one fundraiser in the past, a road race, but there’s no corporate Young Life.”

Yescott said the organization relies primarily on donations to recoup expenses and children are never asked to raise money.

In the end, Yescott said he wants parents to understand the organization is there for them and if there is ever an issue of concern between a child and a parent, they take the side of the parent and try and help students see things from their point of view.

“I’m a parent of three teenage daughters so I can relate,” Yescott said. “If anyone would like to get a kid involved in some way, we can help them do that. Anything we can do at all, don’t hesitate.”

The club meets every Monday night at 7:15 in the Wentworth band room.

To learn more about the Young Life organization and club meetings, contact Yescott at 318-0127 or steveyescott@yahoo.com.

Staff Writer Dan Aceto can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237.