Release. Express. Connect. Transform.
empower your mind unlock your light
Happy Giving Tuesday!
Our Unlock Your Light program combines mental health tools like EFT Tapping with high-quality music, dance, visual arts, theatre, and youth-led research projects for over 167 youths across the Chicagoland area this year. We teach students how to calm their nervous systems, reduce anxiety, and move out of fight-or-flight—then give them creative spaces to process trauma, build confidence, and tell their own stories on stage, on the page, and in their communities. As one student shared, “This is the first place I feel like I can breathe and be myself.”
Your gift today helps fund our Hamilton humanities project, where students will study American revolutionary history, identity, and civic leadership through the musical Hamilton—all while using arts and emotional wellness tools to make those lessons personal and empowering, culminating in powerful public presentations as part of America’s 250th Anniversary. Your support also helps sustain the safe, creative, and healing spaces our youth rely on—and ensures we can keep showing up for them with the consistency and quality they deserve. If you’re able, please give and help us keep unlocking their light.
Every dollar you give to Youth Civic Light Opera of Chicago is doubled up to $46,000. At YCLOC, it’s giving calm minds, confident voices, and youth who know their stories matter.
From Barriers to Brilliance:
Youth Civic Light Opera of Chicago is a nonprofit dedicated to helping youth and families in Chicago build
emotional resilience and well-being. We provide holistic programs that integrate Emotional Freedom Techniques
(EFT), fine and performing arts education, and youth-led research to empower individuals to overcome emotional
challenges and thrive.
Youth Civic Light Opera of Chicago is a nonprofit dedicated to helping youth and families in Chicago build
emotional resilience and well-being. We provide holistic programs that integrate Emotional Freedom Techniques
(EFT), fine and performing arts education, and youth-led research to empower individuals to overcome emotional
challenges and thrive.
Don't just take our word for it
Kye (Middle School participant in YCLOC)
Kye (Middle School participant in YCLOC)
"While attending classes and YCLOC remotely, I went from being an average student to an honor roll student. I learned about self-control and using the arts (Drama) to help me process and release negative emotions and behaviors."
