Dawn Stueckle
Co-Founder & Executive Director
Dawn has worked with young people in San Francisco for more than two decades, starting campus-based girls’ support groups at Lincoln High School and A.P. Giannini Middle School in the early 1990s and co-founding in 1992 the organization that would later become Sunset Youth Services. In addition to providing leadership for the nonprofit, managing staff, connecting with donors, and building relationships with young people served by Sunset Youth Services, Dawn partners with numerous community coalitions and city agencies as an advisor, change agent, and voice for the disenfranchised youth of the city.
In 2018 Dawn was elected to co-chair the Juvenile Justice Providers Association (JJPA)–– a consortium of community-based organizations that she helped establish in 2004 and which plays an important role in local policy-making, youth advocacy and has a strong voice in how funds are used to meet the needs of vulnerable youth.
The magic that is Sunset Youth Services all began with a small dream to invest in young people and offer the kind of relational wizardry and support needed to overcome hardship and thrive. (Learn more here.)
Nearly three decades and thousands of young people later, the legend lives on because of YOU.
You’ve enchanted us with your financial support––with many of you giving generously and often. You help us keep the lights on and pay the rent, hire talented staff, and lovingly support young people who are experiencing instability. Thank you!
You volunteer and wave your wand––cleaning or painting our youth center, building a parklet this past year, refreshing our planters, mentoring youth in the music studios, helping with our annual gala, staffing the Kids Zone at the Sunset Community Festival, and so much more. Your presence and faithfulness in building relationships with our staff and young people impact us long after you’ve left the building. Thank you!
You materialize in-kind donations as if out of nowhere––offering home goods and furniture for young people who are moving out to live on their own for the first time. You donate cutting-edge studio equipment for our youth programs. You give holiday turkeys and Christmas gifts––sharing from your own abundance and thankfulness.
You’re our community, our die-hard supporters, our faithful givers. Through the long pandemic and as we’ve re-opened our youth center, you’ve made yourselves available and given when we needed it the most. There is no better magic.
Thank you from the founders and all of us at Sunset Youth Services!