History
SOYC was founded in 2009 by Ringo Harrigan. Ringo has worked as a volunteer for over 20 years in various fields supporting those affected by poverty, calamities, disabilities, and crime etc. He started out in Curacao at the age of 16 when he was working by McDonald St.Maria and for the first time he saw an special need person in a wheel chair and he saw that they where special and unique and there he start helping and at the age of 23 he when to Holland and in Holland kept keeping going helping people in poverty in many different way Also those who needed to be courage. Over the course of the next 4 years he attended auto mechanic with a broad package, construction, bricks, tile, paint, electrician, plumber, rough & fine carpenter, welding, industrial design, agriculture, and furniture design and building courses etc and today, Ringo utilizes these skills to assist on programs that directly affect our youth. Ringo is also very creative in the Arts sins when he was a child and feels that through the Arts, including music, a child or young adult can flourish in his or her personal and emotional development as music is the world’s common language.
Since its inception 3 years ago, SOYC has been involved in 14 community projects. An overview of these projects can be viewed under the section “Projects” of this website. All of the projects have a singular goal: to help directly or indirectly those youths affected by calamities and poverty. So far the projects have been relatively small scale; funding has come either from Ringo’s own pocket or have been raised through private donors in the form of materials such as school books and necessities, housing appliances, and home building materials and bank deposits. Ringo is also an avid gardener and cultivates various fruit trees and vegetables which he sells to raise funds. Other fund raising events include organizing a carnaval stand for which tickets were sold, selling coconut’ on the beach and kraftmarket by the cruisship, cleaning a lot privet sectors garden, doing different reparations at people’s houses, welding, rough & fine carpenter work, tile, plumber, electrician, paint, bricks, selling own art work.
SOYC’s main aim however, remains assisting disadvantaged youths on a large scale.