Encouraging youth empowerment and belonging through community service, art and nature

We are a Youth-oriented organization, with an aim to build resiliency, belonging and confidence in the young people of Mancos and Montezuma County. Below are more of the inner workings of what we are up to at this time!

In the summer of 2021, we launched our first program in partnership with the Mancos School District RE-6 and the Mancos Library. We called this program “Reading Buddies”. The vision was to get students Pre-K and up together to increase a culture of reading (even in homes that might not have a strong relationship to books and reading yet.) Reading Buddies used the unique mix of all ages (the littles watching the “bigs” do things like write and read, and the bigs watching the littles for safety and comradery) which creates connectedness, self confidence, and an ethic of service, all while increasing literacy rates in Montezuma County.

Reading Buddies has had a great run. We are deciding to end the program for now, due to a need to narrow our age range. We are so sad to let this amazing first program go, and we know it is the right decision for MYA at this time. We will miss you all, and hope you continue to read and listen to books far into the future.

Our other big project that began in the fall of 2021, is the building of The Mancos Wellbeing Project; increasing connectivity in Mancos and hopefully creating a model for other communities to follow. We work in collaboration with the SAFE Coalition (a branch of the Colorado National Collaborative). We are developing youth-led actionable steps towards upstream suicide prevention via the strategy of connectivity.

Currently, during the winter of 2024, Mancos Wellbeing Project (MWP) meets at the Mancos Grange for Thursday Teen Dinners. We want to make it fun and supportive to join, so if you are a youth and you need tutoring, or whathaveyou, please tell us! All are welcome.

Montezuma Youth Alliance is a fiscally sponsored project of Mancos Valley Resources (501c3), and in summer 2020, we won a grant through Mentor Colorado and the OJJDP (The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) which supported us in completing the majority of our Manual and Policies, as well as Mentor Applications, Handbook and other paperwork.

We are also generously funded by Tony Grampsas Foundation, The Ballentine Foundation, The Southwest Community Foundation, The Rocky Mountain Health Foundation, El Pomar Foundation, and some amazing and generous private donors, to name a few funding sources. We are SO GRATEFUL TO ALL OF YOU, and know we are already making a positive impact on our community.