Generosity for at-risk and homeless teens

The holiday season always seems to bring out the generous spirits in our community and this year is no different.  In just the past two days, we've experienced the following here at HOME:
-  A longtime friend of HOME dropped off a check and a smoked turkey.
-  A doctor's office brought by cash totalling $100 and assorted items from our Wish List
-  A generous lady brought by 15 NEW BACKPACKS plus games and clothing
- Two festively dressed employees of Chemeketa's Center for Business & Industry (our neighbor) walked two FULL carts carrying LOTS of backpacks, games, toiletries and other items down the street to HOME.
- A couple brought in a used guitar, along with a check.  The youth here LOVE to sit around and listen to/strum guitars.  The two we have currently only have 4 strings each.  (They should have 6).
- St. Marks Lutheran Church has 10 gift cards for $25 for us to distribute.
- A student at Central High School in Independence held a teen clothing drive for HOME as a senior project.  Today he brought several boxes and bags worth of shoes and clothes, separated by gender.
- Employees from SAIF brought by a great assortment of backpacks and other items from our Wish List.
-  The Youth Junk 2 Fashion Funk Team from Blanchette Catholic School sent me their very creative flyer for the fashion show fund-raiser they're putting on for HOME in January.  Here's the link:

http://youthjunkfashionfunk.webs.com/.  What a creative and enthusiastic group!

With all this largesse coming in, it would be pretty overwhelming for our small staff to deal with.  HOWEVER, we've been blessed AGAIN with a volunteer who's a perfect match for the monumental task of organizing it all.  I first met Jennifer Hofman several years ago when she worked on the Backpack Project for HOME at Willamette University.

Jen is one of those people who looks at clutter and, instead of fainting, is able to see the order in things.  In fact, she now has an online business helping others, especially people with home businesses, to get -and stay - on top of that chaos.  She's taking a brief break from her business during the holidays and what does she do with her valuable free time?  Volunteers here at HOME, organizing our holiday gift room.  And doing an awesome job, too.

(Here's Jen's website: Inspiredhomeoffice.com)

Speaking of which, I've got to start tackling the piles in my office and beginning sending out Thank You notes to all these wonderful people who are making the holidays so special for the teens who come to HOME.                 

November Events

Obviously my best intentions on writing to this blog on a regular basis were just that...intentions.  As with most non-profits, the holiday season is always a little bit crazy and it all starts with Thanksgiving.

Actually, it started before Thanksgiving.  The Springs at Sunnyview Retirement and Independent Living Center planned and cooked an awesome fried chicken dinner with all the fixings here at HOME.  They also brought over a wonderful assortment of items and gift certificates that are very useful here.  Here is the Chef and her assistants:

Then our "Crew", a group of HOME youth who meet weekly and plan community service projects, spent an hour - or two - raking up ALL the leaves in front of our house and our neighbors.  About 10 bags worth plus a big yard debris bin. Here are the bags.

And here is the Crew raking.

Our neighbor, Lady Web Pro, who also helps with our website maintenance and does an awesome job by the way, appreciated having her sidewalk all swept off, and brought over several boxes of the always popular fried chicken and salads.  Lucky us to have fried chicken twice in one month!!  It's way too labor intensive for us to prepare here so we very rarely serve it.

We were closed for Thanksgiving Day and Friday, but planned our big Thanksgiving dinner here for Wednesday.  We were very fortunate to have our neighbors at First Christian Church prepare our meal here for about 35-40 teens plus staff and volunteers.  Here's a picture of the tireless church folks cooking the meal

We also had members of the Willamette Soccer Team do some cleaning for us on a Saturday.  Since we hire one of our youth to do our cooking and cleaning, we rarely get any heavy duty deep cleaning done.  So the guys really tackled the floors and dust for us.  And here's a picure of them on our front steps:

The Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend usually marks the beginning of our holiday season at the Capitol Forum's Charity event.  HOME and the Women's Crisis Service have been lucky recipients of this fund-raiser for about 10 years now.  Quite often businesses and clubs like to rotate their giving and it seems rare to be beneficiaries like this for so long.  Even during this tough economy, the event raised about $1,000 for each of us and we are VERY APPRECIATIVE.

Three Cheers for all of the above for your help and support!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Kurt's Story

"These kids, the only reason they're homeless is because they don't want to a.  follow their parents' rules  or b. get a job."
That statement is a common stereotype felt by many people in our community.
A goal of this blog is to present some experiences and stories from our work here at HOME that will lend a more complete picture of runaway and homeless teens in Salem.  We'll change names and sometimes other identifying features and try to put a few weeks or months' distance between the actual events and the blog.  Here's our first story:

Kurt (not his real name)first came to HOME in the spring and only visited once.  However, Kurt’s circumstances soon changed and he became homeless.   He moved in with another family that was already stretched thin, trying to make ends meet.  After a few weeks Kurt became a burden to the new family and was given less than a week to begin helping out or he would need to leave.   Kurt had nowhere else to go and was a teen without any kind of identification or means to obtain them.

He began coming more to HOME, having meals there and picking up clothing and toiletries.  Working with our Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY)staff, Kurt obtained food stamps and went on the Oregon Health Plan.  

The school district’s Homeless Education Program assisted him with obtaining his social security card and birth certificate.   Our RHY staff then helped Kurt through the complicated steps at the Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain an Oregon ID card.  Armed with these necessary identification pieces, he is now applying for jobs.  The food stamps have enabled him to remain with the same family, in a safe living situation and contribute to the household.  Kurt continues to come to HOME for meals, to meet with his case managers, attend school and to enjoy normal teen activities. 

November is Homeless Youth Awareness Month

Probably not a lot of folks know this is National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, not even people who work with homeless youth.  I'm pretty sure most homeless teens don't much care; they've got other things to deal with.
Congress made the declaration back in 2007 and it serves to increase awareness of this ongoing and growing issue.  Here are some facts:

• National statistics report the number of homeless kids at more than 1.5 million.
• The average age of first homelessness is 14.7 years.
• Most homeless adults first experienced homelessness as a teen.  In other words, unless there are intervening circumstances many teens will continue in their homelessness as they become adults.
• Approximately 24,000 teens are living on the streets, in shelters, temporarily in other people's homes, with or without their families on any given night in the State of Oregon.
• Last year nearly 1,000 students in the Salem Keizer School District were identified as not having stable housing.
• The most common reason for teen homelessness is family dysfunction.

Last night at the City Council meeting, Salem's Mayor Janet Taylor proclaimed November as Homeless Youth Awareness Month.  The Proclamation read, in part,

"Whereas many homeless youth have been physically, sexually, and emotionally abused or neglected by their guardians and are frequently re-victimized and exploited while living on the streets and in shelters; and,
Whereas many homeless youth face possible risks such as dropping out of school, inadequate social skills development, unemployment, living in poverty, delayed mental or physical development, turning to crime for survival, substance addictions, human trafficking and even death;
I, Janet Taylor, call on the people of Salem, Oregon to recognize the potential of all of our City's young people, to heighten the awareness of the tragedy of youth homelessness and its causes, and to develop innovative resources and opportunities that improve the lives of our homeless youth and families;
I Hereby Proclaim November 2010 as Homeless Youth Awareness Month."

Our own Shawna Canaga, Community Advocate and Case Manager spoke briefly about some local issues, followed by staff from NW Human Services and the City of Salem.

Who knows if this will lead to anything but at least it is another step in raising our community's awareness for the circumstances surrounding many of our own young people.

Volunteers!

We LOVE volunteers here at HOME Youth & Resource Center.  Since we have such a small staff - and limited financial resources - we really would have trouble functioning without the help of volunteers.  They come from all over - churches, colleges, businesses.  Some come once for a specific project,  others carve out a regular part of their life to spend time here.  Last year, 276 volunteers contributed 3177 hours here and THAT'S pretty impressive.  (We were so fortunate to have an AmeriCorps member, Gerald Pygott, develop our volunteer management program last year)

We were very lucky to have the energetic Ambassador's Club from 1st Christian Church - one of our neighbors - "adopt" us last year and made up a fair portion of those hours.  They painted rooms, laid carpet tiles all OVER, designed a space for our garbage bins, fixed Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.  And there's more...When we said we needed a bicycle stand so that youth could lock their bikes up and not leave them laying around, the group bought and installed one for us.  
AND, they removed our old basketball stand and replaced the entire area with cement.  The project became a HOME event as staff, youth and volunteers enjoyed a BBQ dinner (cooked by Gerald, also a professional chef) and made a "lasting impression" by putting their handprints into the cement. 
What an awesome group!!  Here are some pictures of the event:

Fall is when we begin lining up college students and other volunteers for the coming months.  The Ambassador Club has already offered to prepare our Thanksgiving dinner for us.  And we've already got students from Chemeketa, Willamette and Western Oregon commited to helping out in a variety of ways.

Three cheers for volunteers!!

Our First Blog!

This is pretty exciting.  And a little intimidating but I may as well just jump in.
Our hope is to use this blog for news about HOME Youth & Resource Center events and activities.  And stories. But also, we want to inform our readers about the young people who come to HOME every day.  Why they come, what they're living with, how we - and you - can help them.  Some of our teens are runaways or homeless and we want to let our readers know all about those issues.  Why a 15 year old would be living in a truck or homeless camp for example.
AND, first of all, we want to thank Lady Web Pro for all of her assistance with our website and setting up this blog.  She's the BEST and, if you ever need help with website design and maintenance, check her out!