Impact Sector Series- The Art of Community

On May 30th, we will have a sit down with Beverly Lazar, with Youth2.
Beverly Lazar has focused on working with young people and their families for the past 57 years. Her generosity of spirit and unconditional respect for children, from infant to emerging adult is one of her outstanding qualities. Since the 1970’s Beverly has had a long history in human services.  She was committed to educating our community about child abuse, child neglect and sexual abuse and was instrumental in creating the Saratoga Center for the Family.  She helped develop the Child Custody Stress Prevention Project assisting in the protection of children during the experience of their parents’ divorce.  In 1989, Beverly began her nearly 27-year history at the Saratoga County Mental Health Center in Youth and Family Services treating hundreds of children. It was there that she began the Play Therapy Project and the Play and Healing Library.

In 2003, to celebrate her 50th birthday, Beverly wanted to establish a program that would reach out to youth and interest them in creative service to their community and Youth– Youth Helping Youth was born. Its mission is to engage young people to think about issues that they care about and to create and design their own social action projects to help youth locally or globally. Youth2 helps interested young people turn their ideas of helping our world into realities. Youth2 helps to teach philanthropic and leadership skills along the way with its innovative programing. The thread of continuity in Beverly’s work is her understanding of child development and her respect of the young by hearing and responding to their voices.  Helping others enhances the mental health of our youth in many ways, giving hope and meaningful purpose to work toward the change they want to see in our world.