Young Leadership Addiction Awareness Inc

Generation S.O.S.s widely acclaimed prevention program, recently featured on CBS Evening News Eye on America, helps teens before mental health problems develop into life-threatening conditions that are exceedingly difficult to treat. In 2025, we reached over 100,000 students nationwide. Our peer-to-peer program brings young speakers who have struggled with and overcome crippling mental health and substance misuse challenges into schools and community organizations to share their stories and offer hope and help. These stories are raw, relatable, and incredibly inspiring. They encourage honest conversations and reduce the stigma around mental health and substance misuse. Students learn warning signs, coping skills and, importantly, to ask for help if theyre struggling. Our schoolwide Generation S.O.S. assemblies have inspired students to start Generation S.O.S. clubs around the country and to continue honest dialogue about mental health throughout the year.

In 2025, Generation S.O.S. put significant effort behind two initiatives to greatly expand our reach, and connect within communities facing distinct mental health and substance misuse challenges. We significantly increased the number of meetings in under-resourced communities in Manhattan, Harlem, and the Bronx. We have forged new partnerships with NYJTL, New York Edge, KIPP schools, and Mama Foundation for the Arts, which are building our presence in these communities. Our Correctional Community Initiative brings Zoom meetings from male and female correctional facilities in Ohio and Virginia to schools nationwide. This is an invaluable opportunity for teens and young adults to hear the difficult stories of other young adults that led them to substance misuse, crime and incarceration, and understand that we are all more similar than different. The response to this initiative has been extraordinary, and we intend to partner with many more correctional facilities.