Real Life teens test their bowling skills!

Interesting in supporting local teen refugees? Learn more about Real Life: Teen Refugee Mentoring, including making a donation. We would love to have you on our team! If you would like to directly volunteer at one of our sites, contact Justin Powell, our Real Life Program Director at justin@youthlinc.org.

Real Life hits the lanes! To supplement a life skills curriculum, our teen refugee mentoring programs enjoys taking teens on a variety of fun field trips throughout the year. In March we took all of our participants bowling! Both local South Salt Lake teen refugees and Youthlinc Peer Mentors bowled side-by-side and put their skills to the test, while building great friendships!

Many of our teens had never been bowling before, but you’d never guess! One of our girls from Nepal at Historic Scott School got the highest score her very first time! At Granite Education Center, our new site in partnership with Catholic Community Services of Utah and Granite Education Foundation, many of the refugee youth had been practicing with small balls and paper cup pins beforehand. It paid off! These new teens did an awesome job at their first time bowling. The shoes were a little weird to get used to, but we managed!

The cheese pizza we purchased and handed out was a favorite among everyone. The perfect snack for a day at the lanes! It was exciting to see our skills improve after an energy boost from pizza’s cheesy goodness.

Due to the various times and locations that our sites take place, we were able to enjoy many different bowling environments! Teens went to Fat Cats, Olympus Lanes, and Bonwood depending on their Real Life site. Each place was unique and we had a blast either way. We were surrounded by friends, the most important part!