Coming Soon: Shoe Drive For Homeless Youth

Last year I did a Christmas Day “event” for homeless youth who had nowhere to spend their holiday, and it went beautifully. If you haven’t known me that long, you can read about it here: http://freelance-mom.blogspot.com/2010/07/all-about-christmas-finally.html

Well, plans are still in the works for what to do this year (I know, I know, time is running short and I’d better get moving on it), but there is one thing I would really like to get started on right away. Last year I asked many of the youth (as many as I could get in contact with in advance of the event) what they would like for Christmas. While there were a few variations, the overwhelmingly most asked-for item was shoes. It makes sense when you think about it. A young person who spends their days and nights on the streets does a lot of walking, and they go through a lot of shoes, which are hard for them to come by. I’ve seen them wearing shoes held together with duct tape, and I’ve been there at the Tumbleweed Drop-In House (it’s like a homeless shelter for youth, but open daytime only) when donation boxes came in that included shoes. The boxes didn’t even make it five feet inside the door before those kids were all over them. Shoes get them excited, and they are in constant need of them.

So this year I would like to do a shoe drive. I’d like to have as many pairs of shoes as possible available when I do whatever I decide to do (it’s still up in the air as far as where and how we’ll be doing this year’s function, but I will post more about that later) this Christmas. I plan on asking around for people to donate shoes (used shoes are just fine as long as they’re still functional – these kids are not picky), and also I would like to have somewhat of a fund set up so that we can purchase shoes if needed. For instance, last year there was a particularly large young man who had really big feet, and we had no shoes in his size, so we had to take him to a couple of different stores before we actually found what he needed. Between now and Christmas, my kids and I will be hitting the thrift stores and yard sales for good used shoes, and I am a really good shopper, so I’m sure I can grab up quite a few at low prices. If any of the rest of you out there would like to do the same, it would really be appreciated!

For now, I am just kind of putting this info “out there” so anyone who is interested can perhaps start to keep this in mind, set aside any good shoes you might have been ready to drop of at the Goodwill, etc. If you are local here in Phoenix, I will probably be setting up drop-off locations at my home and also at the church where I work. If you live out of state and would like to be involved in this shoe drive or in this year’s Christmas function, please just keep me in mind and drop me a note when you have a minute. That way I can get in touch with you as ideas are hashed out and we’ve come up with ways for you to be a part of it all.

Thanks for reading, and please do follow my blog if you’re interested in helping homeless and at-risk youth. I will have lots of ideas and things to do that I’ll keep you all updated on as the holidays approach!

A Freelance Mom's Club? Maybe?

A little while back, I wrote a blog post called “I Need To Put A Name On This Thing I Do”. Well, I still don’t necessarily have a name for it (although I think deciding to refer to myself as a “freelance mom” was a step in that direction), but I would like to kind of follow-up here on the train of thought I had going on then. Basically, I would like to start toying with the idea of reaching out and finding some other moms to join me in my endeavors and adventures.

What I have in mind, at least for now, is a sort of casual, loose-knit club of sorts. Perhaps in the future it could evolve into something of a more formally organized nature, but I do tend to shy away from the restrictions, structure and, well – politics, to be frank – that tend to come along with a large organization, so we will have to see about that. That’s for another time, though. What I’m thinking of now is something like this:

A few moms, probably four to five at most, who get together for lunch or breakfast once a month to discuss and plan what things we may be able to do to be of help to the needy youth of our community. The group would need to consist of moms who have a heart for teens and young adults, have a little bit of time to spare, and have a lot of patience (these kids will really tax you in the patience department, so dealing with them is not for the person who needs to see immediate results, nor is it for the thin-skinned). I do not – so nor would this group – try to take the place of professional social workers or social service organizations. Rather, we would keep up with services available through such organizations, thus making us able to send a young person in the right direction when they have a need. At the same time, we would plan occasional projects, “random acts of kindness” if you will, such as handing out cold water bottles or sack lunches, gathering donations of clothing and toiletries for youth shelters, or even setting up events such as my Christmas project from last year.

In the process of all this, I suspect other moms will have the same experience I’ve had: Every now and then, you encounter a young person with whom you just “click”. From there, a relationship grows. Soon you’re a mentor, a listener, a shoulder to cry on, a support system in times of crisis, maybe even a laundromat (lol) or a pseudo academic advisor. It can go anywhere, really. Before you know it, you’re in the mom role to someone who needs one.

My thoughts on all this are still loosely rattling around in my head, but I wanted to go ahead and talk about it here because I’m curious to see if anyone expresses an interest in joining me, offers comments or suggestions, or even tells me I’m crazy. Ha ha. Please feel free to comment, or even to contact me privately if you wish. My e-mail is salmagundigeneral@yahoo.com. I’d love to hear from anyone who has anything to contribute – ideas, fleeting thoughts, questions, suggestions, whatever!

I Need To Put A Name On This Thing I Do

Moving this to my new home here, originally posted on my thoughts.com blog on 06/18/2010:

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Okay, I’m looking for input, thoughts and opinions here. I need to give some form, structure, whatever – and a name – to what I do. Let me start by explaining what my life looks like, and hopefully you’ll get an idea of what it is I’m groping for.

First of all, I am a single mom. I have two children of my own, ages 15 and 20. I also have a 20-year-old foster son who still lives at home, as I am putting him through college. Beyond the presence of myself and my two biological children, the makeup of my household has always been rather “fluid”. I’ve always had a heart for teenagers and young people who don’t have solid and supportive families, and I often take them in when they need a stable home. My foster son, having been with us for almost four years now, has been in our home the longest. Over the years, however, I have had plenty of what I call my “strays” (they know I mean this term lovingly). My “strays” are kids or young people who may or may not have lived with us (most have for some period of time), and for whom I fill sort of a “mom” role, but with whom I’ve never had a legal or biological connection. My foster son is the only “stray” who ever became mine in a legal sense.

I have taken countless young people into my home for varying periods of time, from just overnight to months to years. Prior to my foster son, for example, I had a young lady who lived with us from just before her 18th birthday up until she was almost 21. As a matter of fact, as with most of the “strays” that I have bonded particularly well with, she is still a part of our everyday life – part of the family. She’s here for holidays and birthdays and family get-togethers, she’s here sometimes to do laundry or borrow the car, and she’s someone I can call on when I need help with something or can’t hang a picture straight on the wall. :)

You get the idea.

Anyway, there have been many in our home. Some remain part of the family, some do not. There are also those who have never lived with us, but for whom I’ve tried to be a source of support to the extent that I am able. There is one very young single mother, for example, that I have been working with for about six months now. I’d be happy to have her live with us, but I simply don’t have the room or the proper environment (too many college kids, too many dogs) for small children. You can read about her here: http://www.thoughts.com/salmagundi/blog/keeping-the-lifeboat -afloat-562201/

When I am not directly busy with one of my kids or one of my strays, there are other things I do to try and help out the needy, homeless or neglected youth of my community. Some of the activities that I spend most of my days doing include the following:

• I solicit, gather and deliver items (clothing, shoes, backpacks, toiletries, etc.) for Tumbleweed Center For Youth Development (www.tumbleweed.org), where I’m on a first-name basis with many of the social workers and the “higher-ups”.
• I maintain a list of resources for youth who are homeless or troubled, and I post this list regularly on my local Craigslist site. The list includes my e-mail for those who might need some individual advice, so I also field those e-mails when they come in.
• I serve as a board member for a local charter school district. I’m not always popular there since I tend to stick up for the more “difficult” students. However, it’s me they often call for advice or input when they have a student in a “situation”.
• My kids and I occasionally work on “special projects”, such as making and handing out sack lunches, or “doing Christmas” for youth who don’t otherwise have a place to spend the holiday (you can also read about that on my blog, which I linked to above).
• Etc., etc., etc. – i.e. whatever I can do.

As you can imagine, all of this can get fairly expensive. When the costs aren’t direct and obvious ones, there are the costs associated with time away from work, gas for running around, etc. I’m just a single mom who works as a church cleaning lady, and although more hours and possibly other opportunities for work might be available to me, I have too much on my plate already and I have to keep my schedule flexible if I’m to continue doing what I do. The kids are my first priority. I make up for the expense of it all by supplementing my income with what basically amounts to a forever-ongoing yard sale (selling on Craigslist and my booth on Bonanzle) that is stocked by items that are either donated by friends and family who are supportive of my “cause” or items purchased at yard sales. I also keep my personal expenses very low. I can pinch Abe Lincoln right off a penny, my friends say. Ha ha! I clip coupons, I pick up most of our household items at garage sales, I don’t have luxury items like a cell phone or a pretty car, and I don’t wear anything that costs more than a dollar. For real, that’s true! LOL!

So, that’s my life. In a nutshell. Now, back to my original question/issue:

I feel like if “what I do” had some sort of a name attached to it, I would be able to do more. I’d like to possibly get a few other moms (perhaps empty-nesters with currently untapped mom skills and free time?) to perhaps meet with me regularly and help out with some of this stuff. I’d like to be able to solicit beyond my circle of friends and family for needed items. I’d like to set up a web site and/or a Facebook page to promote awareness of the issues of homeless and neglected youth, and to maybe publish a running “wish list” of items needed by Tumbleweed and House of Hope (another organization I believe in) and, frankly, to further promote my own online sales so that I can continue and possibly improve what I already do.

A name and some kind of at least loose organization, I think, would lend me a bit of credibility with which to ask for things. Social workers at Tumbleweed have told me from time to time that I should start a non-profit. I don’t think I want to do that, exactly, because the idea brings off-putting images to my mind. I do not want to be bogged down with paperwork and administration, and I don’t want my “strays” to become “clients”. My relationships with them are much more personal than that. Maybe my fears are ill-founded, though? If so, and if anyone reading has experience with this, I’m open to hearing your thoughts.

What I’ve really had in mind is something more like a “club” of sorts. A group where people meet regularly, and anyone can just jump in and help where it’s needed. But wouldn’t I have to register the name somewhere in order to legally own it? And surely the organization – in whatever form – would need to have at least some money to cover costs of activities, projects and whatnot? And, if so, would it not have to be set up as either a business or a non-profit? There come all my fears again…

And that, folks, is the issue that’s on my mind. I need to give “this” a form and a name, but I just don’t know what exactly it is I want or how to set it up and make it work. I don’t want to jump into something very formal and very structured. I basically just want to keep doing what I am already doing, but maybe with a little help from a few others, and with the credibility of a name. Can it be done? I am open to all thoughts, ideas, input and suggestions.

Thank you for reading, and for any replies!

We Did It - A Learning Experience!

Moving this post over here to my new home, originally posted on my thoughts.com blog on 07/26/2009:

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Well, we did it – the “first run” of our sack lunch project, and boy was it a learning experience! That’s okay, though, because I really only wanted to use this “first run” as a way to learn and see how it would all work, what unforeseen problems we might run into, etc. Everything in the world went wrong, so that was a good thing! Ha ha! I mean, you can’t learn anything from everything going right… Right?

So, here are a few of the things I learned this time:

1. Making sandwiches and packing lunch bags takes a lot longer than I’d thought when you’re doing a whole bunch. I already have a few ideas about how to be more efficient at it next time. For one, I’ll put the mayonnaise in a squirt-type-bottle for faster sandwich assembly. ;)

2. It’s really hard – practically impossible – to single out just the young people, so we really have to be prepared to feed everyone when we run across a spot where there are a lot of homeless. What we did this time was give out food to everybody (we didn’t actually have enough, so we ran to a nearby Basha’s and bought more food, and packed more lunch sacks in the store parking lot before going back over), but we just gave out resource/information lists to the under 21 people. It’s not that I don’t care about the adults, by the way; it’s just that the resources I happen to have only apply to the younger ones. We also gave a small stack of the lists to a guy who said he knew where a lot of teens were, and he offered to pass them around.

3. Bringing a big trash bag along is a good idea. Not only is it nice to be able to gather up any trash that’s tossed on the ground (which has the potential to make us look bad and get kicked out of some places), but lots of things can come up, such as our having to run to Basha’s and make more sandwiches, that cause the car to get all cluttered up.

4. If possible, we should scope out “spots” in advance. I know we’ll have an easier time next time we go to the same spots, since we have at least sort of an idea of how many people hang out there. Checking the spots in advance can be difficult since we live way up in north Phoenix and most of the areas we go to are far south, and gas is expensive. I still think it’s a good thing for us to keep in mind, though, and do it when we can.

5. Don’t expect to drive home feeling all warm and fuzzy. Well, I actually already knew this, but I think it was a new experience for my foster son, who went with me on this project. It’s nice to be able to give someone a sandwich, some treats, even some information, but the bottom line is that you leave them there on that street while you drive home to your bed in your air-conditioned house. Not that there is anything wrong with that – don’t misunderstand me – but it is hard to go home and not continue thinking of them. Those who have so little comfort, so little hope, and such a struggle. You just wish you could do more, or encourage them to do more for themselves. In any case, you’re usually left with an overwhelming sense of just how big the problems are out there, both in a collective sense and for each individual you just met, and how little your own contribution can really do to help. A drop in a big, huge bucket, so to speak. Like I said, I knew this feeling already, but I think it’s healthy for the kids to experience it.

So, those are the things we've learned so far, and that’s the update for those who have expressed interest in our little project. For our next run, we are shooting for Saturday, August 8th, if anyone wants to join us. That’s just a tentative date, though; not carved in stone. If anyone’s interested, just drop me a line and I will make sure to keep you updated and let you know when the date/time is solidly planned.

Thanks for reading!