As a parent, it is built into my DNA that protecting, encouraging and nurturing my children is one of my primary responsibilities on this earth. Ensuring that my three kids are safe, happy and hopeful is deeply imbedded in my psychological make-up. If you’re a parent reading this, I suspect you feel exactly the same way.Now, imagine that you are homeless and that you and your 15 year old daughter have to leave your shelter by 8 a.m. on a hot, Baltimore summer day, with nowhere to go until the evening, when the shelter reopens.
A terrifying thought, for sure. Where is your teenager going to go, and what dangers face her while you are struggling just to find a way to get through another day and get yourself back on your feet?
The Y’s New Horizons II summer camp at the Druid Hill Family Center Y serves those middle and high school kids who meet the state’s legal definition of homeless. This year, 65 young women and men come to the Y every weekday for a morning of academic support, artistic enrichment, physical activity, financial literacy and other skill and character-building programs delivered by caring and wonderful Y volunteers and staff.
In the afternoon, all of the kids hop on public transportation and head to a worksite where they learn professional skills, the importance of being on time and following directions, and the self-respect of earning a paycheck. Yes, all of the young people are paid a work stipend every week as part of the program.
Jonathan Brice, Executive Director of Student Support and Safety for Baltimore City Schools (and a new Y board member) and I had the opportunity to spend some time with these special young people last week. As always, I was struck by their resilience and determination in the face of odds most of us cannot really understand. When we asked how many of them were going to college, they all put up their hands. Will that end up being the reality? Perhaps not. Yet, to aspire to college is to aspire to a better life, and that’s the key. Their determination to get off the streets, to go to college (almost all of them wanted to get out of Baltimore, away from the influences and environment that hinder their success), and to make a better life for themselves is palpable.
To the New Horizons II kids, the Y is a lifeline. It is the place where they can go to be challenged in a positive way, to grow, to be engaged, and to be loved. It is the very definition of a “Third Place;” except in their case, it’s really their “First Place.” We run 20 summer camps around Central Maryland, and we serve kids who come from every part of the socio-economic spectrum. What’s inspiring to me is that, at their core, all of those kids, including the homeless New Horizons II kids, are the same down deep. They all need to have fun, and they also all deserve our respect, our assistance, and our love. They all need the developmental assets that are critical to becoming successful adults in our community.
When you support the work of the Y, you support the young women and men of New Horizons II. You also support kids all over Central Maryland whose families need just a little help to have those kinds of experiences that most of us take for granted. When you support the work of the Y, you support your community in the most tangible and real way imaginable.
Yours in Community,
John
Posted by John K. Hoey, President & CEO, Y of Central Maryland
