Help Give Inner City Kids New Experiences and Fun

The Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit group that provides summer vacations to inner-city children from low-income communities, is looking for host families, mostly from the northeast area of the country.

About Fresh Air Children:
They are boys and girls, six to 18 years old, who live in New York City. Children on first-time visits are six to 12 years old and stay for either one or two weeks. Youngsters who are re-invited by the same family may continue with The Fund through age 18, and many enjoy longer summertime visits, year after year. A visit to the home of a warm and loving volunteer host family can make all the difference in the world to an inner-city child. All it takes to create lifelong memories is laughing in the sunshine and making new friends.

The majority of Fresh Air children are from low-income communities. These are often families without the resources to send their children on summer vacations. Most inner-city youngsters grow up in towering apartment buildings without large, open, outdoor play spaces. Concrete playgrounds cannot replace the freedom of running barefoot through the grass or riding bikes down country lanes.

See the Fresh Air website for more information.

Helping Children Escape the Sex Trade

Rachel Lloyd, an escapee from the sex trade, wrote a book called Girls Like Us that tells about her experiences as a child sex worker.  She is also the founder of a program in New York that helps children survive sexual exploitation:  Girls Education and Mentoring Services (GEMS).  Ms. Lloyd was recently a guest on the Diane Rehm Show discussing child exploitation.  You can listen to that interview or read the show's transcript here.

Remember the Fatherless this Father's Day

As we celebrate and honor our fathers this week-end, keep in mind that there are approximately 27 million American boys that are being raised without a father in the house.  Author Donald Miller was one of those boys and he wrote a book about the experience entitled, Father Fiction.  He also started an organization called The Mentoring Project which partners young men growing up without dads with positive male role models. The Mentoring Project's goal is "to see thousands of kids enter into relationships with somebody who would be let down if they screwed up, and ecstatic when they succeed."

Miller was recently a guest on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show where he discussed Father Fiction.  You may listen here.

Family Services of Metro Orlando's "Give a Child a Childhood" Fundraising Breakfast to be help April 29

The annual Give a Child a Childhood Fundraising Breakfast is your opportunity to learn how your support has a profound impact on the lives of children and families in central Florida.
Did you know...

•more than 37% of former foster youth cost rather than contribute to society because they never received the supports and resources they needed to grow into healthy and productive citizens?

•more than 200 central Florida children died in 2008 due to abuse? While each life is priceless, the economic impact of these needless deaths is in excess of a half billion dollars every year.

•there are enough central Florida children awaiting adoption each year to fill fifteen classrooms?

•families of abused children generally suffer from as many as eight major life challenges - job loss, homelessness, domestic violence, addictions, physical and mental illness - all at once?

•even as the need increases, government provides only a shrinking fraction of what it costs to provide basic protection of children? We rely on individuals like you for support of our programs to improve the quality of life for children and families in our community.

The challenges children and families face are too large for nonprofits alone to solve. Family Services of Metro Orlando empowers everyone to be part of the solutions many in our community so desperately seek.

To register:  http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e2opqff970b1a227

Guardians Ad Litem Provide a Voice for Children

An Orlando Sentinel article on how Guardian Ad Litems help abused and neglected children

Murray McMahon could be at a driving range, peppering a distant flagstick with golf balls.

Instead, the retired Westinghouse engineer aims for a more important target with his free time: protecting children. McMahon, 79, of Yalaha devotes five hours a week, often more, to his duties as a guardian ad litem, a court-appointed volunteer entrusted with looking out for the best interest of an abused or neglected child.

"A child needs a voice in court," said McMahon, whose wife, Marilyn, also serves as a guardian for endangered children in Lake County. "We're the only one in the court who's there just to speak for the child. Everybody else there has their own interest, everybody else there has a lawyer to speak for them – mom, dad, DCF [state Department of Children and Families]."

Florida's guardian ad litem program, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary Tuesday, depends on trained volunteers who are supposed to act as independent investigators and advocates for children. State law requires that every child in foster care be provided with an advocate. But the program has its critics.

"It should be abolished," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, a nonprofit watchdog organization that monitors the nation's many child-welfare systems. "A child's voice in court is not the GAL's [guardian ad litem's] voice."
Wexler said the volunteers, who are overwhelmingly white and middle class, may be well-meaning, but often bring with them an inherent racial and class bias that fails to serve families who are disproportionately poor and minority.

Continue story:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/law/os-law-and-you-and-guardians-20100322,0,4194381.story?page=1

To learn how to become a Guardian Ad Litem in Florida: 
http://www.guardianadlitem.org/

Teacher Takes In A Teen, And Gains A Family

This is a great story from NPR about a teacher who becomes the legal guardian of one of his former students and how it changes both their lives.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124321674&ps=cprs

Just before he became a father, Colbert Williams left home because his family was too poor to take care of him. As he remembers it, "My mother didn't have a place for me to go."

Williams and his son discussed their strong bond at StoryCorps in Michigan. But in a "prequel" of sorts, Williams also spoke with the man who took him in as a teenager — his fifth-grade math teacher, Ralph Catania.

Catania, 69, was divorced and had no children of his own. He became Williams' legal guardian when his former student turned 16.

"Was there anything that you feared about moving in with me?" Catania asked.

"Oh my gosh, are you kidding me?" Williams said. "Everything."
And he really does mean everything — from what kind food Catania kept in the house to his culture and background. All Williams really knew about the man he was moving in with was that he was a nice teacher.

"I'm a young black man and you're a white man," Williams said. "And I'm like, 'I don't know anything about white people.' "

Then Williams asked Catania about his thoughts after learning that Williams, then 16, was going to become a father.
"My first reaction was, there isn't too much I can do about it."

But he was impressed with something Williams said: "My son is going to know who his father is."
It wasn't easy, of course. There's the night Williams was up late studying for an exam, and his son was sick and hungry. As he started to give the baby some milk, fatigue got the better of Williams.
"I forget to put the top on top of the bottle, and I just hand him milk — and milk just spills," he said.
The arrival of Williams' son, Nathan, was perhaps the most emphatic sign that Catania's previous life, in which he lived alone, had been changed for good.
"I have truly been blessed. There's no other way to explain it," Catania said.

"What you see in me is a reflection of what you put in me. So today I say, thank you."

Catania said that he's heard that from other people that he did a great job helping raise Williams. But still, he doesn't fully agree.

"I truly believe that a lot of this comes from within you, and within your soul, my friend," he told Williams.
"Any parent would be extremely proud of a child that has accomplished what you have accomplished."

Produced for Morning Edition by Vanara Taing. The senior producer for StoryCorps is Michael Garofalo. Recorded in partnership with WUOM.

More about Safe Families - Mentor Families

If you or your group wants to support or be a part of the Safe Families  program, but are unable to take a child into your home, consider becoming a Mentor Family. Mentor Families provide supplemental support to the Safe Families during placement.  Mentor Families will provide friendship, resources, daily living items, knowledge and prayer for families who are in crisis.  Each crisis family who enters the Safe Families for Children program will work with a Mentor Family and will benefit from support and encouragement enabling every family to get back on their feet and allowing their children to return to a crisis free home.

A Mentor provides support for either the Safe Family or the family that is in crisis.  Some examples of how a mentor may help:
 - provide diapers to the Safe Family
 - donate clothes
 - help the Safe Family transport children to school
 -  provide gas or Publix cards to the Safe Family
 - take a member of the in-crisis family to a job interview.

This would also be a fantastic service project or ministry for Sunday school classes, churches, etc.  For more information contact Alison Schminke, (407) 877- 4006, aschminke@bethany.org.

Florida Mentoring Program expands to Include Foster Children

From the Orlando Sentinel's Editorial Section:
Foster Good Outcomes
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edped-mentoring-foster-kids-082082409aug24,0,5346322.story

Other Ways to help Foster Children

From the Legacy Project in Seminole County:
If you aren't sure about the time commitment, or want to do something else to help foster kids that isn't one on one, there are plenty of options available.

• Teach a SAW session. Incorporate whatever interests you into a class discussion. There are about 20 teens that come to learn skills about living independently weekly.

• Donate items from your home. These kids are moving out on their own without any help from their parents, and a very small budget.

• Teach a driving class. Or donate a driving course from a local business.

• Donate a Service from your office.

• Offer employment to one of our youth.

• Give gift cards to provide to kids for special events or recognition.

• Volunteer to tutor.

• The options are limitless. Just call and we can help find something for you!

407-333-8256 or 407-921-2216

Mentor a Child, Change A Life

The Legacy Project is a mentoring program in Seminole Co. for children in the foster care system and the Independent Living Program. While the project serves children of all ages, the mentoring program is particularly critical for older foster children because they must be able to succeed at the young age of 18 without the help of a family. Statistics show that more than 50% of foster children leave foster care without a high school diploma or a job, 60% will be homeless at some point throughout their lives, and most will live in poverty, and their children are likely to experience abuse if these innocent children are not helped now.

Why Mentor?

Children that are mentored are more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to be arrested, less likely to abuse drugs and more likely to succeed in life. Research shows that if foster children are linked with a caring adult at an early age, many of the challenges the teenage foster children face today would be avoided. That is why it is so important to make sure that every child has a mentor. The gift of your time and love will change the lives of our kids for generations! Further, in the Independent Living Program there are currently two case managers responsible for the futures of nearly 100 teenage foster kids. They can't do it alone, they need your help!

What is the Commitment?

It is asked that you have some type of contact with your child 1 hour a week or 4 hours per month (for at least one year). However, the more time you spend with your child the more meaningful the friendship and relationship become.

The Process

- Complete an IL Mentor Interest Survey (below) and email it to Amanda Annis (amanda.annis@cbcseminole.org) or Keri Flynn (Keri.Flynn@cbcseminole.org ).

- They will then contact you. You will need to complete a packet of information that includes background checks, fingerprints, and DMV screening. You will then go through a short (30 minutes) overview training of what you should know and expect prior to your commitment.

- On June 10, 2009 there will be a Mentor Match Event (something fun like bowling or something similar) to help you connect with a child seeking a mentor. (All children involved have requested a mentor.)

For more information, contact Ms. Flynn at (407) 333 - 8256 or (407) 921-2216 or

Ms. Annis at (407) 688 - 9650 or (407) 694-2892.

Help a Child Aging Out of the Foster Care System - Become a Mentor!

Mentoring opportunities are available in Seminole Co. This is a great opportunity to help a child and “get your feet wet” without the commitment of fostering or adopting. You do NOT have to live in Seminole County to participate.

For questions or more information contact Keri Flynn, (407) 333-8256.