Tristan Yingst, 28, lives in Piqua with parents, sister and three indoor cats and six outdoor cats. Yingst began receiving support through Riverside/Miami County Board of Developmental Disabilities in 2011 and has had a case manager to help him create an Individual Support Plan to set and work toward life goals.

Yingst graduated from Covington High School in 2013, after completing the project search pre-employment training program in collaboration with Upper Valley Career Center and Upper Valley Medical Center. Yingst now works at Kroger in Piqua, where he bags groceries, bring in carts and returns unpurchased products to their proper areas in the store. He works around 15-20 hours per week and will soon celebrate a milestone in his employment.

“I’m doing really good,” Yingst said. “My anniversary is coming up soon. It will be seven years in April!”

In addition to his work, Yingst has been a volunteer at GIVE Medical Ministry in Covington. For over eight years, Yingst has served every Tuesday for several hours, cleaning a variety of donated medical supplies.

Yingst is clearly a hard worker, but few people know how to have more fun than he does. Sports have always been very important to Tristan. He started playing flag football with Miami County Special Olympics several years ago, and enjoyed it so much he joined softball, basketball, soccer (one year) and powerlifting. He also participates in a variety of Riverside’s recreational programs, including Fun With Friends activities and outings, WWE Wrestling events and attending the Synergy statewide self-advocacy conference.

Yingst and his girlfriend have been dating for almost 10 years. He enjoys watching Cincinnati Bengals and the Ohio State Buckeye football. Favorite food is pizza; favorite restaurant is Lincoln Square V; favorite movie is “Transformers” and favorite TV show is “Chicago Fire.”

When asked what else he would like people to know about him, he said, “That I’m nice and compassionate, sweet, and that I like to cheer for people. I like to cheer people on so much because it makes people happy and makes them perform better. Cheering just makes people do better!”