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Resilient - The Stories of our Youth
Day after day, year after year, Outreach has been working to bring hope to the homeless youth of Indianapolis. Each day, we find more reasons to share why each of our youth are unique, strong, courageous, resilient.
There are things that, to many of us, seem like normal opportunities that just, well, sort of happen – going to school and graduating, getting a job, buying a house, and so much more. For our youth, these milestones don’t always come easily. Many of them face numerous trials and hardships to reach those milestones. Two of our youth, *Cassidy and *Junior, and only two of our many resilient youth.
“Cassidy was working hard to keep her grades up before schools moved to online learning.
She had been struggling particularly with math and would go to tutoring during her free period every day. At home, Cassidy bounced around from house to house staying with her grandmother as much as possible even though it was out of her school district. As school moved to e-learning, keeping up became a challenge. She wanted to stay with her grandmother where she has the most stability and consistent internet access, but with the pandemic, she was concerned about keeping her grandmother healthy. With spotty WiFi, a damaged laptop charger, and inconsistent places to sleep, Cassidy began falling further behind.
Outreach was able to provide her with a new laptop charger and I was able to get in touch with her teachers regarding Cassidy’s schoolwork and inability to keep in touch on a regular basis. Her teachers were willing to work with her and were appreciative of the extra communication since they had not heard from Cassidy or anyone else on her contact list. To add to the confusion, Cassidy turned 18 during this time at home and had officially become her own guardian in regards to school – something she had been waiting all year for but which came with new responsibilities such as enrolling in school for her senior year next year. By communicating with the schools, I was able to assist Cassidy in enrolling for school next year via video chat and also assist her in signing up for summer school classes so she can retake her math course with less disruption. She will spend this summer retaking those courses to stay on track for senior year.”
– Lydia Speler, ARCH Case Manager
“Junior is an immigrant from Haiti who wasn't sure where to turn when he heard about
Outreach from his case manager at Wheeler Mission. He recently had come from Miami where he was part of job corps. Besides meeting basic needs like hygiene and additional clothing, Junior wanted to find a job. He knew he needed to apply for a work visa and update his student status to an employment visa. Fortunately, I was able to connect him to Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic where they were able to get his eligibility-to-work status updated until the permanent residency card was ready. While having a day off earlier this week from his job with a customer service call center, Junior was ecstatic to share that he received his permanent resident ID card and he "couldn't have done it without Outreach”. Junior just landed a great job as a lab tech with Grifols Plasma Center!”
– Ryan Hayes, Street Outreach Worker
These stories only share the resiliency of 2 of our youth, but each of our youth have shown strength and endurance through the trials that they’ve faced. We marvel at their courage, and we could not be happier to walk alongside them through every chapter.
Congratulations 2020 Graduates
Due to COVID-19, our Graduation Celebration was canceled, but that didn't keep us from
celebrating. Over the last two weeks, the Outreach ARCH team traveled to our youth and delivered the gifts that YOU supplied through our Graduation Celebration Fundraiser. Thank you, from our youth, for partnering with us to bless them with gifts. We also want to give a huge thank you to the Indianapolis Indians Charities for their gift of $10,000 – which included apparel and supplies – to bless our youth. No matter what the circumstances may be, we will never miss the opportunity to congratulate our youth on their accomplishments.
*Name changed for privacy purposes.