One youth. One family. One future at a time.
Introducing the Steve Cordes Legacy Fund
The Steve Cordes Legacy Fund exists to support the moments and needs that fall outside the lines of traditional programming, but that can be the difference between stability and struggle for young people, especially those who are raising children.
Steve has long understood that youth success doesn’t hinge on any single program. It depends on the full picture: housing, employment, relationships, wellness, parenting supports, and someone in their corner to help navigate it all.
Like all YOU programs, Joan’s Place is a vibrant, innovative model, but even the best models can leave quiet gaps. Like the young parent unsure of how to register their child for school. Or, the family trying to heal while navigating a mental health system that wasn’t designed for them. And, the frontline staff who see a need but lack the flexible resources to respond.
This is just one example of the new, unfunded needs that often emerge as YOU grows and changes to respond to the evolving needs of our community’s youth.
And that’s where this fund comes in.
It provides the responsive, relationship-based, barrier-reducing support that ensures youth and their children don’t just survive and stabilize in the system, they thrive within and beyond it.
Your gift will:
- Support young parents living at Joan's Place with mental health resources, parenting navigation and trauma-informed care
- Enable flexible responses by frontline staff to emerging and urgent needs that don’t fit neatly into a program box
- Seed collaborative partnerships that build long term support structures around young families
- Grow to sustain YOU's ability to adapt to future needs
- Serve as a long-term launchpad and seed fund for YOU's next housing capital campaign
This is not a fund for what’s already covered. It’s a fund that supports the spaces between the programs when it matters most.
And you can be a part of that impact with a gift, today.