Ready to Go!

What happens when a young adult is ready to move out and find his or her own way? What did you do? Maybe you moved on to college after high school. Maybe you worked and went to school at night. Maybe you worked, traveled, lived with friends, did a year of service or followed your favorite band.

It’s no different when young adults age out of programs for foster youth. They take many different routes, too. Like young adults of all backgrounds, they sometimes just need a hand. On the Benevolent site, we’ve had many needs posted in which we hear from a high school grad who’s about to head off to college and needs a laptop, bus or train fare to get to college, or basic dorm room furnishings -- sheets, towels and the like. 

My goal is to graduate college,
join the army, and be independent. 
I would like to attend a university
and work in the health field.

Today, though, we’ve got a need posted to the site that’s new for us. Lemia is ready to make the move from the group home she’s been living in with other older youth in the child welfare system. She’s getting her own place and she’ll live independently while she’s in school studying for a career in health care. On the Benevolent site, Lemia’s asking for help with the funds necessary to get herself situated in her new place.

Lemia doesn’t have a family basement or closet to raid for towels or kitchenware, or a folding table to borrow while she works her way towards more “real” furniture and slowly accumulates the things that make an apartment a home. I have no doubt she’ll make her place into a warm and peaceful home, but it’ll take some time and some help.

That’s where we come in. We can step in where family would have handed down the folding table from the hall closet, where the lamp no one was using would have been pulled from a box of old things and where a parent or uncle would have joined in a trip to the store and footed the bill for a few essential pieces.

We can do this for Lemia who has already beaten the odds simply by graduating high school. The stakes are even higher now. While she is one of the 70% of former foster youth with a desire to attend college, barely 5% wind up completing either a two-or four-year degree.

Some sobering facts: 50% of “aged out” foster youth are homeless within 18 months of emancipation, 25% are incarcerated within two years, 60% of these young women become mothers themselves within four years. Lemia’s got clear and impressive dreams and they bear no resemblance to those difficult statistics.

I spent a few years running group homes in Chicago and I can’t tell you how incredible each of those kids was. Every one of them had been through many foster care homes and each one had lived through situations that no child should experience. That’s where their similarities ended. They were as different from one another as kids should be and their gifts, strengths and dreams were inspiring.

I have no idea what Lemia’s seen or what she’s had to overcome to thrive. What I know is that she’s ready for what’s next and eager to get started. She’s generous enough to share her story with us, and she’s hoping we’ll believe in her. Let’s.

- megan kashner

  founder & ceo

  Benevolent

 www.benevolent.net

Giving With Kids

It’s the giving season, the perfect time to invite kids to get into the spirit and the act of giving. How, though, do we instill understanding and generosity in the kids in our lives without making those who live in challenging situations seem “other” or in a world apart from the lives our kids are living? It’s not simple, but it’s where we -- coaches, parents, teachers, grandparents, cousins and neighbors -- can make all the difference.

Kids are always listening. When we talk with kids openly and with an empathetic lens about what we see around us, we’re building responsible, thoughtful kids. When we make it personal through visiting Benevolent.net, reading people’s stories together and talking through some of the reactions that kids might have to reading about people’s circumstances and needs, we’re stretching all our perspectives, learning from each other as we go.

If we give with our kids, not just once a year but as a part of our family’s weekly life, and if we talk about the needs and ambitions of people who have greater challenges than ours, we’re modeling something they’ll carry with them into adulthood and into their own children’s lives.

I asked a handful of people to share the ways in which they weave giving into their family life. Here are three that I think I’d like to try with my kids:

1 – One family collects money throughout the year, setting some aside from allowance and spending money every week. At one set time each year, the parents sit down with their kids and each family member suggests a cause or effort they think the family should support. They talk about what issues are important to them, come up with a list of organizations that address their chosen issues, and make sure each kid gets to direct at least some of the funds for the year as they send off their family donations.

2 – A second family does a range of things, both as a family and as individuals. They go together as a family throughout the year to bring donations to the local food pantry and shelter. They have regular conversations about their own blessings and how fortunate they feel they are. Their oldest started teaching classes to younger kids as a required community service, but then got hooked and kept on volunteering.

3 – A third family has a rule that 10% of any money the kids get (as gifts, from working, etc.) is saved for giving to others. Each kid decides how to give his or her money and when. Sometimes they give to a cause or project through their church, sometimes to a person in need in their community, sometimes to a nonprofit. This way, each child is learning to set aside some of his or her own funds for others and then gets to decide on his or her own priorities for giving.

What if you chose a person a week on the Benevolent site? What if I did this with my kids? We could use that one person’s story and need to spark conversation, talk about choices and personal commitment, to imagine ourselves in another person’s shoes. Then we could give.

Maybe this week, it’ll be Tiffany who has already been certified as a CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant) but wants more for herself and her family than minimum wage. She wants to be a Nurse, an LPN.

Tiffany shares a great deal of her story, including the fact that she had been pregnant with twins, but lost the babies, then lost her job. She shares which college she’ll attend and how she will use the laptop she’s hoping to get to help with online classes. There’s a great deal to talk about there – goals, loss, setbacks, plans, and balancing kids, school and work – a lot to talk about at the dinner table or on the drive to school.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

  Benevolent

  www.benevolent.net