Big Sky Youth Empowerment

A few weeks ago we welcomed two new Program Managers to our team at BYEP. One of them is Kendyl! Kendyl was born in Bozeman and grew up in the area playing in the mountains. She went to college in Helena where she ran cross country and track, and graduated with a Public Health and Health Science degree in 2021. After spending time in Boise working as a Community Health Worker and getting her certification as a Mental Health First Aid Instructor, Kendyl decided to come back to Bozeman.

"I knew that BYEP was where I wanted to be!" Kendyl shares. "I had heard of the program all while growing up here, and knew it was a great community that I would be lucky to be a part of. My time so far at BYEP has been such a blessing and a gift, and I am already so grateful to be working with some wonderful kids and fellow Program Managers as well as the entire staff."

Some fun facts about Kendyl: she has a fear of wind and of wrists — both are quirky, very real, and completely unexplainable. Words that Kendyl lives by? Anything that has ever been written by Taylor Swift. And she cannot live without her dog named Gus. He is a good boy.

Join us in giving Kendyl a warm welcome to the BYEP family!
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We can't run our programs without the support of many — one such awesome supporter is Jelt Thank you and huge to the team at Jelt Belt for their donation. It’s folks like you that make BYEP’s adventure based mentoring programming possible, and get teens outside. 🙌🏼😎

It's ! Thanks to the support from people like you, BYEP is able to offer outdoor adventures to vulnerable teens, and help them feel empowered.

There are many ways to get involved and give on this day of radical generosity. Here are 3 ways you can make a difference:

💗Become a monthly donor: https://www.byep.org/donate
💙Give the Gift of Shred: Get a Lift Ticket to Big Sky that supports BYEP: https://donate.byep.org/gos2022
💞Tell a friend about BYEP

Feeling included is such a treasured feeling 💗 Thanks to you, BYEP participant Meiya felt those things. So much so, that she captured it in writing for us.

She felt included. She felt good. She felt pumped. She felt like she wanted to share that feeling with others.

Thank you for being a part of our BYEP family, and making teen participants feel seen. You help us make positive changes in so many lives.

Gift of Shred 2022

Does all this snow make you think about skiing? Why don't you give the Gift of Shred! It's a gift for a BYEP teen, AND a gift for yourself 💝

👉🏼 Each Gift of Shred ticket gives you a day at Big Sky Resort anytime in the 2022-23 season. And your support helps us take kids up to Big Sky all winter long, offering up opportunities for youth to challenge themselves, and feel empowered.

It's a win-win, a non zero sum, a perfect equation for winter shredding joy! Help us get teens out on the mountain to shred this season, and help yourself to powder days on the mountain with Gift of Shred.

Gift of Shred 2022 Every winter season from January until early April we take our teen participants up to Big Sky Resort to shred. Since not everyone has the resources they need to to access the winter slopes, BYEP helps breaks down financial barriers that prevent teens from being able to enjoy skiing and snowb...

Join us at Bridger Brewing in Bozeman for Pints with Purpose every Monday this month! From 5-8pm $1 from every pint goes to support Big Sky Youth Empowerment 🙌🏼 This coming Monday Nov. 14 there'll be another fun raffle — a chance for you to win some swag (you know you want it) and support BYEP in the process! We love these community partnerships, and are so stoked for the generous support from Bridger Brewing and their friendly, helpful staff. We’re so lucky to be part of this awesome Bozeman community. See you Monday!

How do we know our teen participant’s feet will be comfy and warm this ski season? Because Darn Tough Vermont Socks just donated 100 ski socks to our programs! Huge for this fabulous contribution — thank you, Darn Tough! It's so great to have awesome high quality socks. We're darn grateful.

Sharing some moments from this past weekend's Run for Your Life, the annual Halloween costume run supporting the Bozeman Help Center. The run aims to bring awareness to su***de prevention, de-stigmatize seeking mental health help, remember those we have lost to su***de, and promote healthy activity. The run felt especially meaningful to BYEP this year in light of recent events, helping us start our healing journey. We ran with our loved ones in our hearts 💗

It is with great sadness that we share that our BYEP community lost one of our teen participants, Karma Tupper. She chose to end her own life on October 22, 2022. Karma, age 15, had been struggling with mental illness for some time.

Karma will be deeply missed. We're grateful that she opened up to BYEP however much she was able to. Our staff, volunteer mentors, and participants have taken the past week to be in community, to process, and grieve this loss together. There are many tender, aching hearts in our community, and this moment illuminates the need for support for our youth.

We're immensely grateful for all the warm meals, counseling services, and other support that the community is providing us during this time. Thank you for being present and showing up for our participants as we lean on each other.

Karma's family shared this beautiful obituary with us: www.bit.ly/karma-t

If you or someone you know needs support, you can call the Help Center at 9-8-8. This crisis line is available and ready 24/7 for you and your family.

Participants have been using our new mountain bikes a ton already, and we're soaking up these fall days as much as we can — and that's all thanks to you! 🍂 Mountain biking also offers up great opportunities for us to talk about risk tolerance in relation to outdoor adventures and recreation, an important topic.

Congratulations to Casey Rose for finishing the Moab 240 endurance run, an incredible accomplishment!! Casey finished the race in an unbelievable 90 hours and 48 minutes, and finished among the top 20% of runners.

When Casey signed up for the race, he wanted to run for a cause, and chose BYEP. During the last hours of his run, Casey reached his $20k fundraising goal for BYEP! We’re immensely grateful for his drive to give back to the community, and support a cause he believes in. Thank you, Casey, for your commitment and resilience, and thank you to everyone who got the word out and supported him on his journey. Check out the story on NBC: https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/bozeman-man-helps-raise-20k-for-big-sky-youth-empowerment#

Casey Rose: Moab 240 for BYEP

Casey Rose is running the Moab 240 endurance run, and the race starts TOMORROW! You can cheer him on by helping him raise $20,000 for BYEP! Casey signed up for the Moab 240-mile endurance run to fundraise for a local cause he identifies with, and chose Big Sky Youth Empowerment. 💙 Are you an endurance runner? A 10K Weekend Warrior? Or a Half Marathon Aficionado? Whatever your runner giving level is, show your support to Casey with a gift to BYEP:

Casey Rose: Moab 240 for BYEP BYEP believes in the transformative power of spending time outdoors, and we'd like to empower our participants to become comfortable using bikes as a means to get outdoors. We're working to increase our participants' access to local mountain bike adventures through the purchase of a small fleet ...

Here's the Monday pick-me-up you didn't know you needed: a BYEP alumni story that a former mentor sent us.

"Aiden (a BYEP grad) and I, Grace, (a two season mentor in 2017) just reconnected in Hawaii! We both just moved to Oahu, and she reached out to me to catch up. Aiden and I are both Montanans who married submariners in the US Navy. BYEP created a lasting relationship of learning from each other, long after we’d both departed from the program and moved across the country. We’ve picked up that relationship again with new meaning and parameters. I hope you all know what meaningful work you do, and how it continues to enrich lives far beyond Gallatin County and after program hours! ByyyyyyyyEP! Big shout out to Kayla Bradley who was our Program Manager and an outstanding role model for both of us ❤️"

We love these stories of connection! Thank you Aiden and Grace for sharing yours, and letting us know the continued impact BYEP has to this day.

Casey Rose: Moab 240 for BYEP

Next week something BIG is happening: Casey Rose is running the Moab 240 endurance run. And not just that, he's running for BYEP with a goal of raising $20,000! Casey was fortunate to grow up in a household where he had the support and access to a multitude of outdoor and team sports, and because of this, he has a passion for giving back to his local community. He believes that being involved with sports and being outdoors helps teens become more confident and successful in all aspects of their lives.

It is with so much gratitude and respect that we're cheering Casey on during this incredible feat of endurance! We invite you to show your support to Casey and BYEP, and make a contribution to his crowdfunding campaign today. With your help, we can reach his goal of $20,000 and make more outdoor adventures happen for vulnerable teens:

Casey Rose: Moab 240 for BYEP BYEP believes in the transformative power of spending time outdoors, and we'd like to empower our participants to become comfortable using bikes as a means to get outdoors. We're working to increase our participants' access to local mountain bike adventures through the purchase of a small fleet ...

Fall season, here we come! We're excited to soak up some more outdoor adventures in the coming weeks such as rock climbing, horse back riding, and more 🍂

We're beyond stoked to share that OUR MOUNTAIN BIKES ARE HERE!! Look at these beautiful bikes, ready to be taken out on Gallatin Valley's trails by our participants! This is such a dream come true, and we have so many to thank for making this happen.

Thank you Outride for getting this project off the ground with the generous $7,000 matching grant, and Fat Tire for an incredible $2,500 grant! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to the stellar folks at Bangtail Bikes and Trek Bicycle for in-kind donations! Bangtail Bikes even coordinated all the various bike sizes to be the same color, and each bike has a different color water bottle holder to make maintenance and logistics easy. They really went above and beyond 😭 ❤️

And last not NOT least, thank you for each and every individual gift from our community that helped us meet our matching grant — you took us to the finish line in such a meaningful way. Give us a holler when you see our teens out and about! 🚴

In case you missed, we recently checked in with BYEP Alum Emily Kern, who graduated from BYEP in 2020 after 12 seasons in the program. She shared her story starting from why she joined BYEP, to how it changed her life, and the lasting impact it makes even today. We know that BYEP changes the lives of the teens we serve, but when we hear directly from individual participants the impact becomes even more clear. Before BYEP, Emily felt lost and afraid. She was depressed, suicidal, and her anxiety controlled her life. She was struggling in school and at home, and BYEP was how she got away from it all.

Emily saw life as a burden. After BYEP, Emily sees life as a gift.

Read Emily's story: https://www.byep.org/emily-story

Hello 👋🏼 We're looking for just a handful more volunteer mentors for this fall season, starting immediately. Being a mentor is a meaningful way to give back to your community, and changes lives — that of teens, and your own. Along the way you get to introduce BYEP participants to outdoor adventures you love such as climbing, hiking, horse back riding, and more! All skill levels are welcome. The fall season goes until early December, and of course we always welcome and encourage mentors to volunteer for multiple seasons. To apply, simply go to our website and fill out the online application. ➡️byep.org/mentor

And hey, if you have a friend you think might be a good fit, we'd love for you to pass it on!

Have you ever wondered who makes all of our outdoor adventures happen? Who does all the intricate, time intensive, logistical planning of 130+ teens going to six different locations every Sunday with their Program Managers and Volunteer Mentors? It's our hard working Operations Manager, McKenzie! And she deserves a huge for making it all happen. Aside from the countless everyday tasks and keeping this ship afloat, we can also count on McKenzie to step in last-minute when things don't go as planned. Like that one time this summer when there was an algae bloom up at Hyalite, and she helped organize a completely new replacement Sunday adventure in just a few hours, ensuring our teens still got a fun outdoor adventure! We are lucky to have you on our team, McKenzie!

ENROLLMENT IS OPEN!!!

MAPS Afterschool Enrollment is open for the 2022/2023 school year. Enroll today to make sure you will be part of the ACTION!
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Helena Music Department Helena Public Schools Great Falls Tribune Big Sky Youth Empowerment Cove Jasmin Darby School District East Helena High School: Our Kids, Our Community East Helena High School Booster Club ExplorationWorks Forward Montana Helena Area Chamber of Commerce Lewis & Clark Library Montana PBS Montana Arts Council Montana Chamber of Commerce Montana GEAR UP Montana Afterschool Alliance Ravalli County Fairgrounds Ravalli Republic Reach Higher Montana The Myrna Loy Tell Media Holter Museum of Art Grandstreet Theatre

As summer comes to an end, we're taking a moment to look back at the past season. One thing we're excited about is that this summer we launched a new electives pilot program for BYEP participants. Electives are additional times for teens to come to BYEP outside of their regular workshop times, and participate in a special workshop to learn a new outdoor or creative skill.

We started things off with an elective art making workshop! Or what is called an expressive illustration creature workshop? Wait, maybe it was the googly eye cartoon glitter stoke workshop. Either way, it was super fun!

Our goal is for electives to offer BYEP participants even more opportunities to express themselves, learn about new activities, and be at BYEP. After all, our beautiful new space exists for our youth to be in it and use it!

As summer comes to an end, we're taking a moment to look back at the past season. One thing we're excited about is that this summer we launched a new electives pilot program for BYEP participants. Electives are additional times for teens to come to BYEP outside of their regular workshop times, and participate in a special workshop to learn a new outdoor or creative skill.

We started things off with an elective art making workshop! Or what is called an expressive illustration creature workshop? Wait, maybe it was the googly eye cartoon glitter stoke workshop. Either way, it was super fun!

Our goal is for electives to offer BYEP participants even more opportunities to express themselves, learn about new activities, and be at BYEP. After all, our beautiful new space exists for our youth to be in it and use it!

Huge to Electric California for sending our teens all the snow sports goggles they’ll need for the winter season ahead! Our winter programming wouldn't be possible without generous gear sponsors like Electric. We can't wait to see these rad goggles on all of our participants! 😎

At the end of every season our participants receive a BYEP T-shirt as a way to mark the successful completion of 13 weeks of workshops and adventures. This season our T-shirt was particularly special: the design was drawn by none other than one of our participants, Aidan! He originally created this clever design with pencil on paper, and you might notice that the drawing is inspired by our logo and one of our favorite summer adventures, white water rafting.

We got to present the finished T-shirt to Aidan on his birthday this July — here he is with his twin brother, both wearing the new shirt. Thank you, Aidan, for creating this fabulous shirt for all your peers!

Printed by Concept Design Studios in Bozeman, MT

Mountain Bikes for BYEP

🚨We need you: only 7 more days to meet our match!! 🚴 🚴🏽‍♀️

Outdoor adventures are fun, and they can also be daunting — but what we find again and again is once teens overcome a physical challenge, like a white water rafting trip or a high ropes challenge course, they often feel a novel sense of confidence. A feeling that with the support of friends and community, they can work through challenges, feel empowered, and experience growth.

⚡️We have a dream to add mountain biking as one of our regular outdoor adventures to our curriculum, and now we have an opportunity to make that happen… but only for 7 more days, until August 31! ⚡️

If we reach our goal of $7,000, every dollar will be matched by . Those funds will allow BYEP to purchase our own small fleet of mountain bikes and take our participants on mountain bike adventures all year long, offering vulnerable teens more varied opportunities to get outside and grow inside.

✨ ⛰ Please consider donating today! Your gift of any amount will help us reach our goal 👉🏼 www.bit.ly/bikes-for-byep
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Mountain Bikes for BYEP We're addressing an important issue that affects many people. Our mission is to spread awareness and raise money for solutions we have identified. We created this campaign for everyone to contribute at various impact levels. Be sure to review the ways you can make an impact and please share this...

First Impressions: a Note from Danica — Big Sky Youth Empowerment

It’s been one month since our new Executive Director, Danica Jamison, started her position! She has some first impressions, and a note to all of you. It starts with BeeeeeeeeeeeeYeP! — the sound of BYEP, the sound of belonging…

Read the note from Danica at

First Impressions: a Note from Danica — Big Sky Youth Empowerment BeeeeeeeeeeeeYeP! This is the sound of BYEP, the sound of belonging. At the end of my first day as the new Executive Director at BYEP in mid-July, I was invited to join a huddle for this group beeeeeeeeYeP! It is a cheer I had never heard before, and I will never forget the sense of belonging and co...

What’s your favorite outdoor activity in summer? For many of us living in beautiful Montana, mountain biking is the answer. It’s the closest thing to skiing during those hot summer months (and man do we love shredding down the mountain in fresh snow). Currently the difficulty of coordinating large group bike rentals and rides limits us to just one bike ride adventure per year for our participants.

Access to mountain biking, just like skiing, comes with barriers and challenges, but we think we can change that: you can support Big Sky Youth Empowerment to acquire a small fleet of mountain bikes!

🚴🏼‍♂️We received $7,000 in matching funds from , a public nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of youth through cycling. With your support we can reach our matching goal to purchase bikes, helmets, bike gloves, and a trailer in which to store them. 🚴🏻‍♀️

We have until the end of August to raise $7,000! Will you help us get there?

💖⛰If you believe in the transformative power of spending time outdoors, and the inherent joy of pedal-powered adventure, please consider donating so BYEP can offer mountain biking adventures all summer and fall! Donate Now:
https://donate.byep.org/mountainbikesbyep

Get involved with BYEP, become a volunteer mentor! You get to introduce teenagers to adventures you love like climbing, skiing, and hiking, and build meaningful connections. Mentors commit to 10 hours per week for one season (12 weeks), and work directly with Program Managers each week to support our teens through the program. We know that’s a big time commitment, but we also know that mentoring has a lifelong impact on the lives of teens, and the mentors themselves. Are you ready to give back to your community? www.byep.org/mentor