YAMS
Youth Against Multiple Sclerosis
What is YAMS?
YAMS, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that started out in 2000 as an MS Walk team in the Southern California National MS Society’s Chapter of the National MS Walk. The team started with a couple of motivated 13 year olds – Joel Dinin and Kaley Zeitouni who were walking for Joel’s father, Michael Dinin, and because of Kaley’s recent diagnosis at the time. They had 48 people on their team in the first year – classmates, teachers, and family members and raised over $5,000!
Kaley continued to captain the team the next year when it expanded to 277 walkers raising over $17,000! One year later, in 2002, there were 200 YAMS members raising $37,000. In the fall of 2002, a Board of Directors was established along with the decision of the committee of 2002 to become a non-profit organization as opposed to just an MS Walk team. This decision was a life changing decision for the founding Board of Directors and allowed YAMS to make a larger impact on the MS community. While YAMS started having its own events throughout the year, the MS Walk team has continued each year and our all time high was in 2003 when we raised over $55,000!
The mission of YAMS, Inc. is twofold: to raise money to aid in the fight against MS and to spread awareness among today’s youth about this disease. Money raised goes to research for treatments and for a cure, to help those in the community with MS, and toward education. To date, YAMS has raised over $250,000! The goal of spreading awareness to today’s youth includes teaching about MS, how kids can get involved, and empowering them to make a difference in their communities, as well as opening their minds to the lives of people with disabilities. These goals are achieved through workshops held in middle schools, high schools, and youth groups across the country as well as at our many events, and through our website and newsletter which reaches over 1,000 families three times a year.
In the eight years that YAMS has been a non-profit, the Board of Directors has always been comprised of high school students and the legal officers are college students. The MS Walk team has spread to include teams in six states, and we hope it will only expand!
For information, please contact info@youthagainstms.org