COVID-19 has changed the lives of religious followers. The nonprofit, Christian organization Young Life aims to assist their members. The program is working with their youth groups to give support to students by different forms of social distancing and distance worshipping. The goal of the group is to allow kids to have a space to project their thoughts, emotions and spiritual beings through team building exercises and bible readings.

“We just want our youth to feel loved and accepted. We want them to feel as if they have someone to come to and have a support group to talk about anything in life. Especially with the pandemic, we’re working on three stages of support to give to our youth groups,” Madeline Kongeter, Mission staff and Youth Coordinator, said.

Young Life has set up three ways of support for their youth groups. The first stage is social media outreach and connecting with their students. The goal is to open a channel for confidential conversations online. This allows kids to open up and talk about their experiences going through this pandemic.

“The biggest thing young life has given me is a place to vent and let my emotions out. Social distancing has given everybody a lot of stress and worries. The help from Young Life is a great resource for any kid looking for any outlet during this pandemic,” junior Chasia Riddle explained.

Young Life is actively dropping off care packages and cookies to their youth groups. The care packages are the second step of their community outreach to their youth groups.

“They have been sending out cookies which are a camp thing from Young Life. It is a tiny reminder of how life will be back to normal again,” sophomore Sammy Ness said.

Finally, Young Life has been holding Zoom classes. The point of the Zoom classes is to study the bible, and support each other emotionally. The classes normally go for an hour long, and commonly have up to 10 kids in them. Young Life’s progressive support plan, the 3 steps, has given a support system to students in need. The programs allow students to have fun while enjoying their faith safely at home.

“It’s so much fun and everybody there is so welcoming and they don’t really care where you’ve been, what you’ve done, anything like that complete judgment free zone. And it’s just a really fun place to hang out with people. And it just doesn’t take much of your time so you might as well go. I think it’s a really cool opportunity that I wish more people would go to,” Riddle explained.