Dauphin County, Pa. – Lace up your sneakers for Youth Advocate Programs (YAP®) Inc.’s 50th anniversary YAP® Making Change Happen 5k, Walk and Food Truck Brunch. The events take place Nov. 6 in Harrisburg, Pa., where the national nonprofit was founded and headquartered.

“We’re inviting program participants, families, friends, employees, supporters and our Harrisburg neighbors to walk or run with us in celebration of our organization’s 1975 founding where it all started in the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” said YAP® President/CEO Gary Ivory. “Tom Jeffers started this organization and we have built upon his legacy, delivering and advocating for safe, effective and less costly community-based alternatives to residential care and incarceration.”

YAP® is a national nonprofit that partners with public systems in 32 states and Washington, D.C. to provide community-based rehabilitative, behavioral health, intellectual/developmental disabilities, and other services that give communities alternatives to placing young people in residential care and correctional facilities. Neighborhood-based YAP® Advocates and behavioral health professionals are trained to deliver individual and family support guided by principles of the nonprofit’s unique wraparound services model. The evidence-based YAPWRAP®  model helps young people see and nurture their strengths and connects them and their families with individualized resources and support.

Registration for the 5k is $30 before Oct. 1 ($35 after; $40 on race day) and, while supplies last, will include a commemorative YAP® T-shirt. The race will take place at 8 a.m. at Riverfront Walk – a path connecting to City Island. The YAP® Making Change Happen Food Truck Brunch will follow from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the nonprofit’s headquarters at 3899 N. Front St., where attendees will enjoy family activities, learn about the nonprofit’s history and impact, and enjoy tasty breakfast and lunch choices from truck vendors who will donate a portion of their proceeds to YAP®. 

The 50th Anniversary YAP® Making Change Happen 5k, Walk and Food Truck Brunch will facilitate collaboration among supporters and others whose passion and power are expediting youth justice, criminal justice, behavioral health, developmental disabilities/autism, and interconnected family services systems change. 

While over the past decades, YAP® has operated largely with funding from government referral partners, the nonprofit relies on foundation, corporate, and individual donors to bolster efforts to scale our effective model to reach more individuals, families, and neighborhoods across the nation.

For more information on the event, visit yapinc.org/50th. To register, click here. If you would like your business to participate in the a Food Truck Brunch, email srankinwahlers@yapinc.org.