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Posts Tagged ‘foster care’

Day 283 – Chavon B.

Posted in Gave the money to someone else, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2010| 8 Comments »

Busboys & Poets at 14th and V Streets (photo: Reed)

 I decided to go over and grab dinner at Busboys and Poets and see if I could talk with someone about holding my year-end celebration there.  They gave me the name of a person to talk to and I followed up later via email.  Coincidentally today someone called me back from their organization.  They were not interested in hosting the event unless I was going to pay a five-figure amount which is simply not possible and completely outside of the spirit of the Year of Giving.  So, if you know of a good venue in Washington, DC that can hold 200+ people and would like a ton of in-kind national and local media, let me know. 

Chavon paid her $10 forward. (photo: Reed)

While I was eating I met the person sitting to my right: Chavon.  A foster care case worker by day, she was enjoying a respite with friends after a long stressful week.  She works with a total of seven kids right now; two of which are siblings.  She tells me about each one of them; their ages: 5, 6, 7, 13, 17, 18 and 19.  “It’s hard work,” she says exhaling.  “But you have to also let people go through their own journey.”

Busboys & Poets gets its name from American poet Langston Hughes. (photo: Reed)

She says she has always been a person naturally oriented to help others.  “It’s a passion,” she says with a smile.  “You know, every time someone gives you something – even a dollar – it means something.  

She says that she has given each one of her kids a notebook that they are to write down things that she tasks them with.  “I have to stay on top of them,” she tells me with a slightly more disciplinarian demeanor.  “I think that I will see how each one does on their assignments for next week and I’m going to give the $10 to the one who makes the most progress.”

Her two friends that were with her, Carla and Marques, spoke very highly of their friend.  “She is a good listener and she’s very honest, brutally honest,” Carla says.  Her friend Marques called her “hilarious” and said that she was also very sensitive.

As I left Chavon put a smile on my face when she said, “Reed, this has made my day!”

"Every time somebody gives you something - even a dollar - it means something." - Chavon (photo: Reed)

On Wednesday I got a note from Chavon saying that she had given the $10 to a new client of hers: a 13-year-old girl.  “She was very respectful and compliant with the things I tasked her with,” she wrote in her email.  “She was able to purchase her own breakfast without having to depend on anyone else.”  Getting her email made my day.  Thanks Chavon!

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Day 232 – Cierra M. & Shaquan D.

Posted in Gave the money to someone else, Refusals, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2010| 3 Comments »

I met a friend for lunch over near Union Station and then decided to walk back home. It’s about 30 blocks so I knew I would find somebody! I stopped by So Others Might Eat (SOME) and picked up some information and then kept on snaking my way over to Dupont Circle. I came across a nice guy who was originally from Mexico out walking a couple of dogs. He took my card but said he preferred that I find someone else…so on I went.

 

Tent City DC at Parcel 42 (photo: Reed)

I decided to stop by Tent City DC.  When I arrived at the abandoned lot at 7th and R Streets I didn’t find anyone there.  I walked around, yelled “hello, anybody home” but no voices came from any of the tents. Just then two young girls yelled over to me from outside the fenced in area where I was standing. “Hey, why are you guys staying in these tents?” I walked over and explained to them that I was not one of the people staying in the tents, but that they were protesting the fact that Parcel 42 was being earmarked for development into luxury condos instead of affordable housing like what was promised by the mayor’s office a few years ago.

I told them about my project and asked if I could give them my $10 for the day.

Shaquan and Cierra next to Tent City DC in the Shaw neighborhood (photo: Reed)

 Cierra is 17 and Shaquan is almost 16.  They are high school students who are working this summer at a youth camp.  They are also two of the 463,000 children living in foster care in the US.

Shaquan has been in the system since she was three and has been in and out of group homes and families all of her life. “The system has got a lot of problems,” Shaquan says. “Every time you go to a new place you got to go through the whole screening process again.” Cierra has only been in foster care for about five years but even in that relatively short amount of time she has been shuffled between 6-8 families. Right now they are both living with Cierra’s sister for the summer, but soon they will go back to a foster family or group house.

They say that some foster families are only in it for the money. “They get a lot of money from the government and we don’t see any of it,” according to Shaquan. I played devil’s advocate a little and reminded them that the families also have a lot of costs that they may not see directly. The agreed that that was probably true, but they still felt like there were some inequities there.

I was deeply sadden as I talked to these smart, articulate young women. They have been forced to grow up much faster than others. They have felt unloved and unwanted at times and suffered through the pain that accompanies those emotions. “It’s hard,” Shaquan starts to say, “I used to blame other people for my actions, but I can’t blame nobody but myself. You got to keep your head up!” She went on to say that she was adopted by a family years ago and she “messed it all up.” She was referring to a woman named Ms. Theresa. I learned that in addition to adopting Shaquan, Ms. Theresa had also opened her home to Cierra. “Man, I wish I was back there now. I didn’t know how good I had it, but I messed up again,” Shaquan says.

I asked them what they were going to do with the $5 that each of them had in their hand. “Probably give it to someone else,” they said. “If I see a homeless person and I got money in my pocket, I give something,” Shaquan says.

photo: Reed

This was one of those days that I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who I had met for a long time after the goodbyes. Both of these girls have so much to offer the world. They are smart. They are charismatic. They are strong yet sensitive and thoughtful at the same time. They are beautiful young women who have not had the easiest path to get to where they are today and admitted to having made some poor choices themselves. What impressed me most was their attitude. They could have said “poor me, why me?” But they didn’t. They accepted responsibility for their actions and their lives and were living in the present making the best out of the cards that they have been dealt.  Keep your head up!

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Day 114 – John T.

Posted in Gave the money to someone else, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2010| 6 Comments »

Last week I met with about a dozen former colleagues of mine from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation for dinner at Lauriol Plaza.  I like this place, but I don’t understand the mania around it.  If the weather is nice, everyone goes there and it is not unusual to be told that there will be a two hour wait.  We were lucky that we didn’t have to wait two hours.  After dinner a few of us went over to Kramerbooks for dessert.

After we finished I asked our waiter if he would participate in the Year of Giving, but he said he was slammed and didn’t have time.  So I wandered inside and through a small door that leads to a cozy café / bar where I found John sitting by himself fidgeting with his phone.

John at Kramerbooks in DC (Photo: Reed)A patent litigation lawyer from Irvine, CA, John is in town for a law conference.  He started his own practice with some partners in 2006.  He handles all kinds of cases, although the examples he mentions are mostly in the area of technology and biotech.

When he is not practicing law, the 35-year-old says he enjoys sports, movies, and photography.  In fact he had a nice Nikon camera placed in front of him at the bar.

John and his wife also are involved in giving.  They help the Teen Leadership Foundation.  Specifically he tells me about one set of kids that are with a foster family where the mother has cancer.  In fact he says that he is going to give the $10 to her.

I asked John if there was anything you could help him with for the Lend a Hand section.  He said no, but then thought for a minute and said, “Actually I really could use a responsible, hard-working personal assistant that I can trust to handle confidential materials.”  So if that sounds like you or someone you know and you are in Irvine area, let me know and I will connect you with John.

We shook hands and thanked one another and I started walking home.  About half way home I realized that I never gave John the $10!  Oh no!  I hustled back to the café hoping to find him still there.  Sure enough he was there and was totally cool about it.

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Day 24 – Ron

Posted in Alcohol, Food & Beverage, Laundry, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 8, 2010| 3 Comments »

This one is a long one… go get yourself a cup of tea.   

I met up with some former work colleagues today.  It’s great to reconnect and hear how things are going for them.  On my way home, I came across a heavily bearded gentlemen sporting a hiking style backpack.   

Ron, a 40-year-old California native, says he has been in DC for almost 3 months.  He had hitchhiked his way from Phoenix to DC and hopes to continue on to Massachusetts after brunt of winter passes.   

After a long period of not finding work he found himself on the streets two years ago.  Ron says he is a good skilled laborer and has experience operating various types of equipment.   

Ron holds his $10 citation for possession of an open container of alcohol in public

 

We stood talking in the sub-zero temperatures for nearly 40 minutes.  Ron is easy to talk to and opens up to me very quickly.  He said it’s harder to get work as he gets older.  I told him that 40 wasn’t that old.  He shifted his weight from one side to the other and paused a little before speaking.  “I always want to know, how old do you really want to be? I don’t think I really want to be past 60.  A lot of people say they do, I just don’t.”  This was so sad to hear.  I found myself wishing I had some background in psychology and started to ask him some questions about his upbringing.      

At the age of three, Ron’s natural parents, whose names he does not know, gave him up.  He bounced around five different foster homes throughout his younger years. He does not have a solid relationship with his last foster family.  He even says that he doesn’t truly have a legal last name that he knows of.  He uses the last name of his last foster family; however, he was never legally adopted by them.   

There is a lot of pain deep inside him some place.  I decide to change the subject.   

In DC he supports himself by performing day labor and panhandling.  He usually goes to the Home Depot off Rhode Island Ave. and hopes to get picked up by work crews.  On days he panhandles he brings in about $30 per day.  “DC is tough,” he tells me as he mentions cities where one can receive a lot more money panhandling.  Salt Lake City and Las Vegas are much better according to Ron.  He says that a $100 day is not uncommon in Las Vegas, although he explains that panhandling on the strip is prohibited.   

Although Ron is living on the streets, he is a part owner of a house in California.  He and some of his foster brothers went in together on a house years ago, however, right now given the housing market lull, he doesn’t believe he will see any of that money for some years.  Although he doesn’t have a roof over his head, Ron is not bitter about his situation.  He points out that he often sleeps very comfortably in a little covered area just off of Dupont Circle.  As he describes the place, I realize he is describing the place where I found Ayalew.  I start to describe him to Ron and he immediately confirms that it is my friend from Day 20.   

So what is Ron going to do with my $10?  “I’ll probably get a little bit of food and maybe do some laundry,” he replies.  Then he changes his mind as he recalls that it is supposed to snow later in the evening.  He avoids laundry before snow/rain storms that end up getting him wet and dirty.  He then says, he might spend part of it on some alcohol.   

Despite Ron being extremely lucid, there was the distinct scent of alcohol on his breath.  He admits that he has an alcohol addiction and says that he was drinking earlier in the day.  In fact, he goes on to share that his drinking that afternoon resulted in him receiving a citation for having an open container of alcohol in public.  He unfolds the citation and shares it with me.  Would you believe how much the fine was for?  $10!  I said, “Hey, now you have money to pay the fine.”  He smiles and says that he fully intends on paying the fine because if he fails to do so and gets a subsequent ticket he potentially could be arrested.   

His entire encounter with the police department was quite interesting.  They asked him for ID and he showed them his DC ID card.  He showed me as well.  On the ID is a clean-shaven version of Ron.  His address is listed at 309 E Street.  “Is that where you live?” I asked.  He explained it was a Day Center where he sometimes goes.  “What should I put on the card?” he fired back.  “Bench next to Fountain, Dupont Circle, Washington, DC?”  He went on to explain that the confrontation with the police department went on for more than an hour.  Two additional units were called in for back-up since they could not find his name in the system.  He offered to leave the area many times, but they insisted on giving him a ticket.  He felt that this was unfair based on the fact that on New Year’s Eve he said there were some youths that were setting off illegal fireworks at Dupont Circle and the police came and didn’t even write them a citation.  “I wasn’t doing anyone any harm, those fireworks could have actually hurt someone.”   

Ron had been very generous with his time and I felt that I should let him get on his way.  I had one last question for him.  “What would you like the general public to know about people who are in your situation?”  He thought for a while and said that he hoped that people would understand that many people get to be homeless.  Many more, he goes on to say, are 1-2 pay checks away from being homeless.  As I was getting ready to leave he reminded me of the Day Center at 309 E Street where he says I will see first hand some of the struggles people are having.  “Take a body-guard though, it’s pretty rough there.”  Hmmm, I will have to think about that.  He also mentions  that he goes to Miriam’s Kitchen, an organization that offers homemade meals and high-quality support services to more than 4,000 homeless men and women each year.  I checked them out and they seem to be a good operation.  I asked him if he had ever received meals from S.O.M.E.?  He said he had in the past.  I brought it up because I have volunteered there and also started a corporate social responsibility program for a former employer that involved donating our time at S.O.M.E.   

I put my notebook away and asked if I could take a picture of Ron.  He said sure, and I got a picture of him holing his $10 police citation!  I couldn’t hold back my grin from the serendipitous timing of me giving him $10.

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