A Letter From Our Executive Director
As parents, we have perhaps no greater joy this time of year than watching our children head off to school. Each of us knows the amazing feeling that night before the first day of school. You go to bed early, but can’t really sleep. It’s an anxious excitement that keeps us awake, as the kids and the parents. But imagine the first day of school as a homeless student. Not sleeping the night before because it’s starting to get colder out and you’re hungry too. This is the reality for many of the young people who make their way to us because they heard about it through a neighbor or friend.
We received a post on our Facebook wall just yesterday that I wanted to share. “Today I dropped off a young man I have watched grow up for the past 10 years. His family fell apart and he ended up homeless and lost in the world. I let him stay with me for 2 days, but knew he needed more help than I can give. I’m so thankful to HOPE 4 Youth for giving him a place to stay and a good path to go on. God bless you all.” We are grateful she saw us on Facebook, asked questions and made her way with him to us. We are grateful for the opportunity to help him today and in the weeks and months to come.
As the seasons change for us and we continue to have new homeless youth arrive at our doors like this, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that worked so hard this summer on their behalf. From our faithful volunteers who show up week after week, like the mentors and donations team, to our dedicated staff that continue to make us proud, to our board of directors, committees and teams like the Housing Heroes Committee, Community Impact Team, event committees, and Faith Partner Committee, to name a few. Also our community partners, from CDI Curbs and Jan Anderson who fill our fridge each week, to Paul Spitzley of the Ole Piper Inn who makes sure we have much-needed supplies, to people out there that continue to make purchases from our Amazon Wish List , and the list goes on and on. Thankfully, it goes on and on. Without all of you and the many more that weren’t specifically named, we couldn’t be here when young people need us most.
I sincerely hope to see you at one or more of our upcoming events where you will have a chance to hear about what we are working on to end youth homelessness as we know it today by the end of 2020. And, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. With your continued support, I can assure you, we’ve only just begun.
-Lisa Jacobson
