Young Center Launches Waymaker Fund with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Waymaker Fund for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Supported by Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, the fund will match every donation to the Young Center dollar for dollar, up to $1 million.

“Over the last few years, our perspective has grown and we’ve realized we have to do everything possible to foster more compassion and empathy in this world. History’s being written right now. We’re grateful to give back to an organization who gives voice to so many.”-Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.

The Waymaker Fund will provide essential financial support to the Young Center’s Child Advocate program, through which our attorneys, social workers, case support specialists, and volunteers defend the rights and best interests of immigrant children who migrate to the United States by themselves or have been forcibly taken from their families. The Fund will also support the Young Center’s policy work and help us fight the administration’s continued attacks on immigrant children’s rights and advocate for an immigration justice system that sees children as children and recognizes their unique needs.

"We are so deeply grateful for this extraordinary gift from Blake and Ryan. Their donation will help ensure that the most vulnerable immigrant children – who are in detention facing deportation – will have an advocate to protect their rights and their best interests." - Young Center Executive Director Maria Woltjen

The Young Center is the only non-profit that provides independent volunteer Child Advocates for immigrant children in government custody. Child Advocates meet with children in federal custody every week to make sure they are not alone, their stories are heard, and their safety and well-being is prioritized in immigration proceedings. Young Center Child Advocates are appointed to the most vulnerable immigrant children, including children forcibly separated from their families at the border, children with mental or physical disabilities, children who are pregnant or parenting, children who are victims of human trafficking, and children who have witnessed or experienced violence. Child Advocates are most often assigned while children are in custody and continue to serve children after they are released. In collaboration in Young Center staff, Child Advocates fight for the best interests—health, safety and well-being—of children while they are in deportation proceedings to make sure that wherever they land, whether here in the U.S. or in their home country, they are safe.

On the policy front, the Young Center’s goal is to change the immigration system so that children in immigration proceedings are recognized as children, and best interests is made a part of the decision making process. Advocating at a national level, we fight to safeguard the protections afforded to immigrant children, defend the legal and human right of children to seek protection, end unlawful and unnecessary family separation, and improve conditions for migrant children throughout the immigration process.

Children are escaping harrowing violence and persecution around the world to seek safety in the U.S. Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’s support and the Waymaker Fund bring renewed energy and valuable resources to help the Young Center continue serving vulnerable children seeking safe haven. We’re immensely thankful to them.