The first Youth Wellness Conference was organized by the Ile-a-la Crosse Friendship Centre in 1994, after being established as a non-profit organization in February 1992. The founding Chairperson of the Friendship Centre, Buckley Belanger, and eight other board members recognized that the population of youth was growing fast. At this time, 68% of the population in Ile-a-la Crosse was under the age of twenty-nine. It was very overwhelmingly apparent that statistics were on a sharp rise in other areas as well. more... See more text