MANCHESTER, NH – Before the 60 volunteers headed out to sleep under a canopy outside the Radisson Hotel on Friday night, they got to hear from two young women who had been helped by Child & Family Services when their lives had reached critical mass.
Their stories underscore the important work done in our community by Child & Family Services. They are just two of the hundreds of stories that can be told on any given day in New Hampshire.
Felicia’a story began when she was placed into foster care at the age of about 4. The next several years left her sad, confused and defiant. All she wanted was her mom. Acting out was the only defense mechanism she had. Although she was eventually returned to her home, she suffered abuse – while in the foster care system and once she was back with family. She eventually left home and lived on the streets, getting caught up in a life that she was never meant to lead. Thanks to the outreach of Child & Family Services Felicia found the kindness and compassion she’d longed for in her life, and today she is participating in NH Job Corps culinary program. She is raising a young son, and has placed a younger child for adoption, a tough decision she made during her period of homelessness. As painful as that was, she says she knows she was not in a position to take care of two children. Now at age 21, she expects to graduate in nine months and be ready for a full-time career in the restaurant business.
The other young woman, Kadyja, talked about her lifelong passion for education and learning. She and her sister, who was born with developmental delays, were happy and thriving, living in Concord in a “nice house.” When she was 15 the family moved to Manchester. And within a year or so, she realized that there was an undercurrent to her parents’ lives she never knew: Both were dealing with substance abuse — her father with alcohol and her mother with heroin. The apartment they moved into in Manchester had a revolving door for drug users, and they were eventually evicted.
All through this time she and her sister tried to manage, going to school and staying under the radar as they spent some time living with relatives in an unstable environment. After her parents were arrested, she and her sister were on their own. They lived for a time with her grandmother, which became the best option for her sister, still in need of services.
Kadyja decided to leave her grandmother’s house and try to make it on her own. But she soon experienced economic challenges while working and going to school.
That’s when Kadyja discovered Child & Family Services, where she was able to get the moral support she needed to finish school, including three years of participating in Upward Bound, a federally-funded college prep program for low-income students. However, after graduation from high school, she needed to work three jobs just to sustain herself. She lived in a few rooming houses, which were not ideal living situations — many of the residents were drug users, says Kadyja, and she didn’t feel safe. With the support of CFS, she is now participating in their Transitional Living Program, which helps to prepare young people to be self-sustaining and live independently.
At 20, Kadyja is about to graduate from an LNA program, and is ready to fulfill her lifelong dream of higher education, as she plans to get her bachelor’s degree in social work, and become a Licensed Alcohol Drug Abuse Counselor.
Those who participated in SleepOut 2016 raised $172,827 as of March 28, including a $50,000 boost just before the sleep out from Mark, Sally and Jennifer Stebbins, owners of PROCON, a long-standing partner of CFS.
“The Stebbins family has partnered with and supported Child and Family Services for over 30 years,” said CFS President Borja Alvarez de Toledo. “This past year, their company took on the task of establishing our new Youth Resource Center at 326 Lincoln Street. With major financial commitment and untold hours of sweat equity, they renovated our new facility, which has become the new destination for over 1,000 local at-risk youth. I can’t think of any business that has done as much to BUILD brighter futures for New Hampshire youth.”
Child and Family Services, a statewide, private, nonprofit organization, serves as a lifeline to over 1,500 runaway, homeless and at-risk youth per year throughout New Hampshire, providing a spectrum of services from survival aid to independent living support. The agency puts “boots on the ground” with its Street Outreach program, which finds youth in places where they are at great risk, and provides survival aid and a way off the street. The agency’s Teen Resource drop-in center offers food, clothing, laundry, showers, and a computer lab. The agency also provides educational advocacy, job skill training, mental health counseling, housing support, and substance abuse treatment, in order to change the trajectory of these young people’s lives.
Proceeds from the CFS SleepOut will help the agency in its efforts to prevent youth homelessness and empower them to become self-sufficient, contributing members of the community.
It’s not too late to donate to help push Child and Family Services over its $200,000 fundraising goal. Click here for more information.
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