Our meeting with Jessica Ross and Lindsay Davis at Treehouse was helpful in a number of ways. On a practical level, this was a nice opportunity for Giana to experience an interview situation and learn more about how to prepare and participate in meeting with people that are interested in enrolling her as a volunteer. She also came with the hope of discovering a way that she could help teen girls in the foster care system that would feel significant and exciting to tackle as her community service project.
Lindsay, the Development Coordinator for Treehouse, gave us a tour of the “Wearhouse,” a store set up for their (foster children) clients with everything from clothing and books to bicycles and toys. They have extremely dedicated volunteers that manage all the aspects of the store – it’s truly impressive. As we walked though, Lindsay shared a number of stories of how others have done creative projects to help stock the store and meet specific needs of the clients.
Our conversation helped us learn about a number of creative out-of-the box projects that other teens have done in support of Treehouse. We also got to delve a little deeper into some of the problems that foster teens have, which led to learning more about the heart-wrenching experience of ‘aging out’ of the system when they turn eighteen. Up to 50% of foster teens are homeless once they’re eighteen and are no longer receiving support! Giana had a strong reaction to this – and so did I. We were shocked and had no idea that so many teens were going directly onto the streets. On the drive home we were also both acutely aware of how grateful we are for having parents, homes, and all that comes with that – especially when you are growing up.
We were very appreciative of our tour of Treehouse – it is very well managed and run by people with a great deal of heart. And we left knowing that it would be a great organization to partner with (for Giana’s project). However, we were also uncertain if there would be a way to partner with them if her focus was on the ‘aging out’ issue. The Treehouse mission appeared to be primarily in service to foster children under eighteen and they weren’t very involved with the issue in which Giana clearly had the most interest.
I initially thought that we would come away from visiting Treehouse with her project more clearly defined. We’re getting close – but we’re not quite there just yet.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
