StandUp for Kids – Olympia/Thurston County
We are volunteers who want to help unsheltered at-risk youth in your community. We are pleading with you to support a youth 18-24 years of age into a safe place to call their own. If you are that person, group, or community who can help provide a safe haven, please donate. Your donation would help put four youth in a rental apartment which cost $1400 monthly. Give what you can. Every little bit helps us help them.
Homes are where youth expect to be safe, comfortable, and healthy, but this is not the case for millions of youth who are at risk of poor health outcomes because of problems with housing quality, housing instability, and lack of affordability A stable home has a positive emotional, psychological, and behavioral impact in a youth’s life. We ask you to join us in the campaign of youth home stability. Below you will read an excerpt of a written piece from one of our volunteers.
“Let my people go. Let my children go. The spirit of fear is amongst us. We were not given the spirit of fear but of love and hope. Help our unhoused homeless youth, eighteen to twenty-four years old, be free to come to a safe table to eat, safe cup to drink; be free to take showers to lay their heads of comfort and support. These are treasures walking through the valley of darkness and death looking for safe havens; looking and searching for something, someone that will bring them to the promise land of caring people, communities to help them by support.”
Is this you?
We are pleading with you to help, as our youth are in desperate need of food, of shelter and of support. My team and I are struggling towards finding resources. We are struggling to find safe place shelters, a building, a garage, an apartment, or even just a piece of land to create this environment for them. We need you, the community, to say “let our children go”. We need you, the community, to say “let them be free”. We need the community to say “YES”. We are looking for a “yes” from you.
18 year old John was looking for a safe place last night. A place where he could sleep without worrying about being messed with or assaulted. He was turned away from the one place he thought would say yes to him. He called us at 8:30 PM, but we also had to turn him away. It broke our hearts to do so. Finally, he had to resort to sleeping in a broken down car that he had found a few nights earlier.
We hope and pray that someone will say yes. We trust someone will hold out their hands and say yes. Who is this person? Who is this group? Who is this community? Is it you?
18 year old Jane is struggling on the streets. She searches for a safe place for the night to get away from being a potential victim of sex trafficking, the fear of her belongings getting stolen, the fear of being assaulted middle of the night. Instead, she finds a tree to sleep under.
As a 100% volunteer team, we have high hopes for all the youth we serve. We can’t do it alone. With thousands of people, thousands of homes, we have gotten “NO” from every angle. We are looking for a “YES”. Who is going to say, “Yes, let my children be free to eat, to drink at our table? Let them be free to shower in support of love and hope”
Because of COVID-19, resources are far-fetched and extremely limited. Thank you for donating. It means a great deal to us and even more to the youth. We are eternally grateful.
