Later this year, Youth Eastside Services will unveil its new infant and toddler services to continue its mission to assist the mental well being of youth in the area.

Because as the Invest in Youth breakfast put on by the organization showed, trauma can happen at any time.

Youth Eastside Services provides assistance to children and families with challenges such as substance abuse, emotional stress and violence. It’s been helping at-risk people since 1968. For 17-year old Tallulah Gronseth, it was there for her in time of need.

She was 15. A good kid, with decent grades and family and friends. She went to church. It was here she met someone she thought was a friend.

He overpowered her and assaulted her, turning her life upside down.

Gronseth tried to reach out to someone, and the attacker found out. He and his family began to bully her as school and at church, she said. She stopped going to church, creating tension within her own family.

She made some new friends, one of whom was a dealer. He had her try Adderall. Things spiraled quickly into weed, ecstasy and drinking.

Gronseth was finally halted in this downward slide when a friend gave her a water bottle of vodka at school. She was caught and suspended. A Youth Eastside Services counselor was there to help pick her up.

The road since then hasn’t been smooth, but it has been improving, Gronseth said.

“I learned I was good enough,” she said.

The Invest in Youth breakfast is Youth Eastside Services’ largest yearly fundraiser, and more than 1,000 donors helped raise more than $600,000 for the organization. Guest speakers like Seattle Supersonics legend Lenny Wilkens and Seattle Seahawk Jermaine Kearse reminded those in attendance March 24, in the Bellevue Hyatt Regency ballroom that a community needs to invest in itself to be successful.

Some of that investment goes to help struggling teens like Robert Santos, who smoked weed at 13 and then became so embroiled in the lifestyle that by 14, he was dealing. The Sammamish teen said over an average two week period, he would smoke $100 in marijuana.

“I thought I was the man,” he said.

Two arrests later, his confidence had waned, and his parents’ trust in him had vanished. He agreed to meet with a Youth Eastside Services counselor to avoid being charged for one of the arrests.

“I stand before you today 188 days clean from marijuana,” Santos said. “But I’m still struggling. I pray your children don’t make the same mistakes I did.”

Patti Skelton-McGougan, the executive director of Youth Eastside Services, reminded those at the breakfast that although the Eastside is generally affluent, the youth here deal with bullying, drugs, depression and thoughts of suicide in shocking numbers.

“I lost my best friend growing up to suicide,” she said.

Lake Washington School District will have on-site suicide risk assessments to help save lives, she continued.

Youth Eastside Services employs 70 people and has a $4 million yearly budget. Nearly 20,000 volunteer hours help make the organization flourish.