Greetings world!
This year, we have been working with about 14 students in San Francisco with 5 consistant female mentors. We have turned REACH into a mentoring weekend program and we do activities and programs every other weekend. We hosted a spring fitness 10 week program, and a summer art program successfully so far. All in addition to going to the movies, working on college essays, and more!
As you begin to go shopping this year, we ask that you consider “adopting” or “co-adopting” one of our students to make their holiday so eventful! They have personally requested these items, but our program is not in a position financially to assist in this department.
Keary is a talented, straight A musician who is asking for a laptop computer so she can do homework on her 2-hour (each way) commute to high school and for college! She just submitted 17 applications for college, including Harvard. Jasmine was raised by a single mom in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing. Single Room Occupancy is basically one standard sized room, closet, and bathroom. The other residents were drug dealers, prostitutes, alcoholics and they were loud and disruptive at all hours of the night. After years of complaints, she was removed from her mom’s care and placed in emergency foster care.
Nicole has been in foster care for more than seven years, separated from her siblings the entire time. Nichole isn’t even sure if her brothers and sisters know about her, and she wants to use her senior photography thesis to bring her family together. This year, she is asking for a professional camera.
Daniel: “As a ten year old in my first group home, I remember daydreaming about being powerful enough to do something for the kids I had grown to know so well. That Christmas, everyone had a visit from someone, but me. Today I am a mentor to foster youth in my area, and have earned a position on the Foster Care Alumni of America Committee. The next time I am in family court, it won’t be as a powerless youngster, but as a legal advocate to the next generation of underprivileged youth. With that dream in reach, I am not without impediments to my educational trajectory. After two years as an honors student and a 3.9 GPA, I have been accepted to a University far from my home. Without a car, it will be very difficult to commute to this campus. My goal is to have a car of my own, which will assist me in launching my career as a practicing civil rights attorney, and blazing a trail for the future foster youth, who deserve to know that their dreams can become goals, and with a bit of help, those goals will become reality.”
Steph: “I was born with a paranoid schizophrenic mom. My mom wouldn’t take me to school and we moved every few months. She took me away from my dad, an alcoholic, by putting a knife against his throat and saying “If I can’t leave and take Steph with me, I will kill you.” She physically and emotionally abused me. I was then put into the foster care system. I tried my best to excel in school, but it is hard with the lack of education because of no foundation I had, until the eighth grade. My hope and inspiration is that through education I can have the power to accomplish my dreams, and in bettering myself and loved ones. I have maintained a 3.2 GPA. Throughout high school I have done clubs such as Glee Club, Red Cross, Gay Straight Alliance and the Tutor Club. I have great artistic ability. After school I volunteer my time as a daycare assistant as a way to give back to the community. I aspire to go to a UC and major in graphic design, psychology, or international studies. Having a laptop computer is essential to furthering my education.
Jennifer: “At age 2, I was placed into foster care with a loving family. While I never got a chance to be placed back with my biological family, I still feel blessed to be in a home that loves and supports me. I live with just my foster, now adoptive mother. unfortunately my foster/adoptive father passed away with cancer when I was 9. Right now, I am in high school, and earning good grades has never been easy. However, right now, I have a 3.59 GPA and aspire to go college. Right now, I want to go to UCSD, UCLA, or UCSF. This is my dream. I want to succeed and beat the odds that I know are against me. I am the only child left in my family that still lives with my mom, and I really want to make her proud. Unfortunately, since my foster adoptive father passed, my mom is now on social security and is a widow with very little help. Money is tight at home, so I work a couple of hours a week to buy my necessities for school and for home. I went to the dentist this month, and the dentist informed me and my mother that I need to have all four wisdom teeth (that are impacted in my mouth), removed. While this sounds painful to have this surgery done, it is more painful keeping them in right now. It is imperative that I seek professional help from a dentist to have these removed. Unfortunately our insurance from the government will not cover this procedure. This procedure in total is $1,850, and this Christmas, I would like to save enough from working after school to get this procedure done with your help.”
REACH is a nonprofit designed to create equal opportunities in education for youth in foster care in order to break the cycle of homelessness and increase graduation rates by creating peer leaders. Resulting in stable, strong supports for youth that create positive outcomes.
