This dissertation examines the complexities of giving and receiving help in contexts of marked structural inequality between those providing and those receiving help. It seeks to describe and analyze the part played by unequal access to power due to race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and its resulting cultural disconnects, in a youth service industry that appears to be mostly devoid of such politics. It further seeks to understand how these inequalities are exacerbated when age is an additional marker of difference between service provider and young person. For this purpose, research was conducted in the city of Lawrence, MA, where youth service providers tend to come from affluent neighboring communities and young people are often second generation Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants growing up in poor and working class families. This dissertation considers the intersection between the personal experiences of the young people and service providers participating in this research, the youth service industry, and the state apparatus that manages its workings. It examines how the visions of social order at the base of the youth service industry in Lawrence organize the industry's culture and practices. The dissertation argues that development models figure prominently in conceptualizations of help for young people, and therefore a critique of the development model in international development can be useful for understanding the work of the development paradigm in youth services. The dissertation concludes proposing that large-scale interventions devoid of social critique need to be replaced by forms of help that attend to the positionality of those involved, and support equality and reciprocity in helping relationships.