The African Young Dreamers Empowerment Program Intl. (AYDEPI) is bringing back their annual winter event for the third time.

This year’s Snowflake Gala will take place from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 21 at La Quinta Inn and Suites, 31611 Pete von Reichbauer Way S. in Federal Way. Featuring this year’s theme of “Unbreakable — Building emotional strength in at-risk youth,” this free event will feature food, games, raffles, music and more.

Last year the event was held at Federal Way High School and included a variety of activities for youth.

One youth speaker at the event spoke about his experience volunteering with AYDEPI, saying: “It helped me with camaraderie and gave me a sense of community, because as an African, it’s hard to find people to connect with and relate to, and with AYDEPI there’s an opportunity for that.”

AYDEPI holds events to share resources, celebrate culture and give back to the community. Through partnerships with local environmental organizations, they do invasive plant clean ups and plant native plants.

Aside from building community outdoors, their mental health work is also done in partnerships with schools.

Another youth speaker at last year’s winter event described AYDEPI’s mental health program where they “link mental health cases with hospitals and institutions with the capacity for mental health services, and by having authentic talks, since most of these issues in our community are termed taboo, and we normalize these issues, and we see a drastic change in the students and parents understand they understand mental health a lot more how to handle it and how to seek help.”

To learn more about AYDEPI, head to https://aydep.org.

In addition to fun activities and food, the 2023 AYDEPI Winter Ball offered resources like free instant testing for HIV. The test involves a quick prick of the finger and having this option available makes it more accessible and combats stigma. Photos by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror

After listening to speakers, playing games and enjoying food, the evening ended with dance and music.

A DJ at the 2023 AYDEPI Winter Ball keeps the music going for attendees at the free event.

’Mental Health Matters’ reads one attendee’s sweatshirt at the AYDEPI Winter Ball in 2023. Photo by Keelin Everly-Lang / The Mirror