|
|
|
Have a Heart for Kids Breakfast It’s hard to mend a broken heart The day after tomorrow is the day we know as Valentine’s Day, or a day of affection and courtly love. People send candy, flowers and cards to express their fondness for each other.
My wife Linda and I typically celebrate this event with a peaceful dinner at our home - just us. Since we are both on the road a fair amount, and eat out fairly often, we have grown to cherish this chance for some “alone” time. (I know some of you guys are thinking that I must be cheap - but this is actually her idea). Now not much is known about Saint Valentine for whom this day was named, other than he was one of several martyred saints of ancient Rome. I am told the feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I. Pope Gelasius included Saint Valentine among those "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." I relate this because somewhere along the way the meaning of Valentine’s Day shifted from reverence to romance. This morning’s “Have a heart for Kids” breakfast is really in tighter alignment with reverence, which is our reverence for our youth. The commitment I think is with everyone here to give our kids and families who may need it an extra hand in getting them what they need so they can live productive lives. We hear a lot about the problems related to crime, poverty, and sheer greed. And you do not have to open your eyes too wide in our state to see the terrible devastation to families and communities caused by substance abuse. All of this makes for interesting news copy. It is the quiet acts of charity and benevolence that sometimes go unnoticed even today. But they do not go unappreciated. Stories of help and heroism, the ones that lift people from feelings of hopelessness to joy, are all around us if we ask to hear them. The people who make these stories happen are quietly but deliberately making a huge difference in the lives of the people they serve - one kid, and one family, at a time. You will hear from your speakers today more details about the 15 programs served by Community Youth Services, an organization that is making a huge difference in the four counties it serves. You will hear from kids like Kya Miller, who was able to use the resources of CYS to complete her degree at Pacific Lutheran University. You will hear how, through the generosity of individuals like yourselves, CYS is able to help some 4,000 four thousand children, teens, and families in the South Sound area each year. It is an organization that truly has a heart. Let me tell you the story of just one family helped by CYS. On December 2, 2007, a major storm pummeled western Washington. In its aftermath the Chehalis River broke its banks and overflowed across the Southwest part of our state like never before. A stretch of I-5 in Lewis County was closed for several days. Resulting property losses to families, farms and businesses could reach as high as a billion dollars. Among those whose home was wiped out by these waters was the home of Scott and Robin Schmidt of Chehalis. Over the past three years the Schmidts have had six foster kids in their home in addition to their own son and Robin’s mother, who is afflicted by Alzheimer’s’ disease. The Schmidts had recently remodeled their beautiful home by the river to accommodate their foster family. When the floodwaters hit, Scott, Robin, their teen-age son, the grandma and a 15-year-old foster daughter suddenly joined the ranks of the homeless. While the Schmidts remained as upbeat as possible, the girl was devastated. As a foster child she had a number of what they call “disrupted placements.” With the assistance of CYS she had found a genuine family in the Schmidts. Her biggest fear was that she would not end up in the same place when the family eventually resettled. Scott Schmidt contacted Community Youth Services shortly after the floods and they were able to find a temporary placement for the daughter in another licensed foster home. But when Scott Schmidt met CYS workers in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, he assured the foster daughter they were a family now and she would be back with them soon. Within five days CYS had a place for the Schmidts – and their foster daughter – in a home owned by Community Youth Services in Olympia. According to Scott Hanauer, the organizations’ clinical director, CYS staff volunteered a whole weekend to clean, paint and carpet the house so the Schmidts could move in. Their future remains uncertain – their house in Chehalis was condemned and neither insurance nor FEMA money can come close to covering the damages. CYS continues to pay for transportation for the foster daughter from Olympia to Chehalis twice a day so she can continue to go to high school there. According to Mister Hanauer, the Schmidts have given the foster daughter the message over and over again that bad things may happen to families, but that she has with them a family forever. I congratulate both the Schmidts and the staff at CYS for keeping this family together. That’s what having a heart is all about. On the average, the kids who become clients of CYS have been in more than nine placements. These often are kids who are either behaviorally and or emotionally challenged. And who wouldn’t be after being bumped around so often? The Schmidts are a solid family who became homeless by circumstance. No matter how one becomes homeless, homelessness in the four counties served by CYS is a huge problem, whether we like to admit it or not. I happen to live over in Mason County, and am told that living quietly in the woods around us are hundreds, if not thousands, of people native to places like Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador. Some of these folks find work as migrant workers, working in agriculture, in the timber industry or wherever they can and if they can. They can’t make ends meet, or have problems getting living quarters because they are undocumented aliens. Regardless of where you stand on immigration issues, it is a fact that there is a sea of homeless humanity living in underlying areas of Thurston, Grays Harbor, Mason and Lewis counties. In 2007 there was a homelessness survey conducted by the Housing Authority of Thurston County where they found 167 people living in emergency housing, 225 living in transitional housing, 187 living in unsheltered locations and 102 living with family or friends. And those are just the ones willing to be reported. What they find during these annual surveys is heartbreaking. Neal McClanahan, the former Thurston County undersheriff and a Tumwater City Councilman, is one of the people who has taken part in these surveys and is very involved in local housing issues. He’s found brother and sister clinging to each other in the Capitol Forest and families barely able to hang on. I can relate to this in my own life. While growing up my mother, brother, sister and I were abandoned by my step-dad and the mobile home we were living in shortly after was repossessed. We were left without a home and would have been homeless except for the opportunity to move into the Salishan housing project in Tacoma, where I lived until early high school. My mom would not accept welfare but was able to work to support us and we never considered ourselves to be poor. We hung on as a family but if not for some resourcefulness and the kindness of others we might have been on the streets. School districts in Thurston county report there are 741 homeless children attending schools. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction tells us school districts report 16,853 homeless children statewide last school year, but is quick to say the true amount is likely way beyond that number – even double – because of discrepancies in reporting. The average homeless kid is in third grade. As an indication of poverty, OSPI also reports that 5514 kids signed up for free or reduced price lunches in Thurston County ALONE last year and 2316 in Mason County. Kids today are resilient, as they always have been, but it’s hard to pick up the pieces of a kid who is tested time and time again by hardships and circumstances that are outside their control. But kids today face more challenges than ever before, helped along by advertising and peer pressure that encourages them to drink, smoke or use drugs. This is not a problem that is going away despite some of our best minds on it, but it is a problem that continues to fuel the need for the kinds of assistance provided by Community Youth Services. Boys and girls who face challenges caused by either circumstance or learning disabilities are often teased and bullied by their peers in school. In my Strategies for Youth program in elementary schools I use a large red heart to capture their attention. I summon a volunteer from the assembly to come forward and give her a large red heart. I then ask the student to rip off a piece of the heart and let the piece drop on the floor. Each time I mention a way a child can be teased or bullied they rip off another piece. Then I give them a roll of tape and tell him or her to tape the pieces back together while I tell everyone about the problems of teasing and bullying. It demonstrates how difficult it is to put a heart back together once it has been ripped apart by a hurtful experience, such as being bullied. It’s a difficult and rarely successful task, which is exactly my point. The scars from a broken heart can last a lifetime. The message you will hear this morning is essentially the same. If we can simply do what we can to keep that heart from breaking in the first place it is a heart we will never have to mend. Community Youth Services is a local organization that is doing all it can – with your help – to keep our hearts from breaking. And if they do break, CYS is there with its proverbial roll of tape to keep them beating strong. There is research that tells us what has worked with other youth with all of the normal negative factors in their lives. One such study is called the resiliency model. I often use in my speeches so some of you may have heard it before. The resiliency model shows that there are three common denominators amongst these kids. They have had care and support by at least one person. They have been given high expectations and then help to meet those expectations and finally the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to their social environment, in other words, to do something good. You in Community Youth Services fill all of these needs. This past week there were a number of celebrations in the international community around the Chinese Lunar New Year. A traditional Chinese expression is “When you drink the water, remember its source.” This, of course, is another way of reminding people to give back to the community that has brought them success. I hope you will consider doing just that today. The goodness and dedication of Community Youth Services is an example of a caring organization that is doing a tremendous job with the resources they have. Please, please have a heart and give generously this morning to help CYS remain the heartbeat of our community. Thank you for caring and for all that you do to help our kids.
|
|
