For the eighth installment in our Summer in a Safe City Campaign (#NYCSafeSummer) grantee highlight series, we want to introduce another one of our grantees, Foster Pride! Foster Pride is an organization that strives to help youth in the foster care system develop talents, skills, and self-esteem. At Foster Pride, dedicated staff and volunteers work with these adolescents through art-oriented workshops and mentorship programs. While participating in the workshop and mentorship programs, the teenage participants work on their self esteem and build a strong sense of confidence about themselves and their potential futures.
Through the HandMade program, teenage girls in the foster care system learn to develop and launch their own line of crocheted items. This approach allows the girls to learn valuable life skills and develop an understanding of entrepreneurship through a creative and innovative model. The participants are able to imagine more possibilities for their futures. The Foundation provides fiscal sponsorship to the John A. Reisenbach Financial Literacy Workshops of HandMade. The workshops educate the young women in HandMade to develop money management skills, financial literacy skills, and a sense of economic self-sufficiency. The students learn how to open up bank accounts, how to budget, how to save, and other skills that contribute to exceptional money management skills. Charlene “Charly” Adams, a former participant of HandMade and current assistant teacher in the program, has created a system to help her save enough money to move into her own apartment. “For every day of the month, I put away the dollar equivalent of the date,” she advises the students. “It’s pretty easy at the beginning of the month, but on the 28th or the 29th, I start to feel it. But it’s doable, especially since I stopped going to Starbucks.” Charly learned from the workshops how to create a system of saving money per month to pursue her long term goals.
Foster Pride’s HandMade program and the Foundation’s Financial Literacy Workshops help to prevent the students from experiencing the challenges that average foster care youth face once they have aged out of the system. Children in foster care often face serious challenges in their adult lives. They are more likely to experience teen pregnancy, homelessness, incarceration, mental health issues, and less likely to complete their education and find employment.
Donate today to our Summer in a Safe City Campaign to help Foster Pride provide more life-changing experiences and training that will improve the quality of life of these youth and protect them from becoming vulnerable to dangerous situations that could be detrimental to their well-being.
To donate, click here.
