Letter from Sparky
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Summer 2002 Bill Wilson Center News COUNSELING • HOUSING • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY www.billwilsoncenter.org Opportunity is what Bill funded through two grants that we hope will be approved. Wilson Center is all about. Each year challenges us in a different way. We can get mired We offer people the in the negatives—or we can focus on the opportunities offered. opportunity to learn, to Opportunity is what we’re all about. grow, and to change their lives. As an organization, Best regards, we also learn, grow and develop, and change. We are exploring several new opportunities in the coming year. Carol Finds Her Way Home We are in the planning stages of opening a charter school by September 2003. On a winter’s night, a 13-year-old girl is abandoned on The Santa Clara County Office of Education is closing the empty streets of downtown San Jose. Six months ear- and consolidating several of its alternative schools, lier, the young girl’s Aunt made a promise to her par- including Bill Wilson School. They have agreed to ents that she would be able to put a stop to the girl’s continue the school for another year until we can reckless behavior. Abandoning her on a dark street get our charter school up and running. corner was the Aunt’s idea of appropriate punishment. With her parents more than 2,000 miles away, she The new charter school, The Roberto Navarro found herself alone, scared and vulnerable. Community School, will primarily serve homeless youth, including youth who have failed traditional That night would be the first of many nights when she schools. We will use a combination of classroom would scramble for a place to sleep. From a distance, work, individual tutoring, and independent studies. an older man stalked and eventually approached her. Most of the youth in the school will not have had He promised her self-reliance through prostitution. Letter from Sparky Letter from positive experiences in school—many have dropped She listened with a mixture of skepticism and a desire out, attended school sporadically, or moved so often to be independent. that there has been no continuity in their education. We expect to customize both the content and the A 22 year-old veteran of the streets warned her that the methodology to individualize each youth’s learning man was offering anything but freedom. He told her that experience to meet their needs. if she wanted to know freedom, then she should go with him to the Bill Wilson Drop-In Center. In the coming year, we hope to expand transitional housing into North County. For some youth, this “It is important that we reach youth at a young age, like expansion will allow them to be in transitional we did with ‘Carol’,” said Christine McNulty, Drop-In housing in the town they grew up in; for other youth, Center Coordinator. “When we can provide them with living farther away from past “friends” will be a support, education and information, the result is a positive factor; and for yet others, living in the decrease in the length of time they are on the streets. northern part of the county will place them closer That means we can lessen their exposure to predators, to De Anza College which has programs for youth drugs, and other dangers.” with learning disabilities. Carol no longer has to search for a place to sleep. Transitional Housing currently has a six-month waiting After counseling with staff members, she was able list. Youth on a waiting list may be living in an unsafe to reconcile with her parents and now is at home situation, on the streets, or couch surfing with in Chicago attending high school. The Drop-In friends.Once they are in Transitional Housing, they Center provides more than a meal for the day, a can begin to work on employment preparedness, place to hang out or a blanket to keep warm. The complete their educations, and learn the skills they’ll Drop-In Center offers hope. need to be self-sufficient. This expansion would be continued on page 4 Safe Place Community Outreach When my co-worker asked me to help with an event Bill Wilson Center trains Safe Place site employees to during National Safe Place Week, I worried about respond to various types of emergency situations. A VTA getting behind in my work. Later, when I found out bus driver in San Jose, for example, asked a teenager who that I would have to wake up at 6 a.m., I was not as was riding the bus for a long time if he needed help. The enthusiastic as I had originally been. boy said that he was afraid to go home because his Dad hit him. VTA contacted Bill Wilson Center and a staff That morning, I dragged myself out of bed before member brought the teenager back to its Runaway and picking up Trang, 14, who is a volunteer in the Safe Homeless Youth Shelter. Place Program. She came out of her house struggling to carry a yellow and black Safe Place sign, which Trang is one of 50 San Jose teenagers in Safe Place symbolizes a safe haven to a child. I got out of the Community Outreach (SPCO) who develop youth leader- car to help her. ship skills through such activities as removing graffiti, At the next house, I walked I realized that these cleaning up parks, and talk- Trang to the front door, where ing to local businesses and to her four girlfriends waited for teenagers could save youth one on one. her. All five wore black and yel- low Safe Place T-shirts. As they the life of a child by “The more resources we giggled with one another, they educating them about have available to youth, the seemed more ready for a slum- more likely they will be to ber party than for a day of pre- how to use Safe Place. find the help they need,” said sentations at elementary and Program Coordinator junior high schools, starting at Franklin Elementary Lyndsey Marks. “The members of SPCO help me to make School. They wanted to walk, and so I left to go pick that possible and, without them, Project Safe Place would up other kids. not be as successful.” Two hours later, I drove to Franklin and spotted the After a long day of driving, I was tired and ready to colors of bumblebees waiting out front. The group escape to my quiet home. The afternoon had turned swarmed into my car. I asked them how it went. They hot and muggy. As I drove up to my 20th pick-up, a spoke with enthusiasm. school, the temperature seemed to rise. Six SPCO volunteers waited for me. They rushed into the car and “At first, we were kind of nervous because this was began to describe how nervous they had been, how our first time presenting the Safe Place Program,” many times they laughed as they performed their Trang said. “But the kids asked a lot of ques- skits, and how overwhelmed they tions, and so I think they really listened. It were when almost all of the kids was cool.” had questions for them. The girls did a skit where an adult I realized that these was following a child who escapes teenagers could save into a Safe Place site and asks for the life of a child by help. The site contacts Bill educating them Wilson Center, and someone about how to use comes to pick the child up. In Safe Place. A sense San Jose there are 225 Safe of pride came Place sites, where more than over me as I 200 youth sought help last year. realized that in Safe Place sites include private some small and public facilities such as 7- way I was a Eleven, Round Table Pizza part of that. Restaurant, Valley Transportation —Amy Purdum Authority buses, San Jose School dis- tricts and City of San Jose Libraries. Safe * Safe Place is Place signs are displayed at the facilities. funded by the City of San Jose. page 2 COUNSELING • HOUSING • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY • Bill Wilson Center News Welcome!Chris Halliwell Thank You Bill Wilson Center is pleased to A special thanks to these corporations and announce the addition of a new foundations for their support of the services provided member of the Board of by Bill Wilson Center to the community: Directors, Chris Halliwell. ADC Chris is an independent con- Altos Foundation sultant providing business-to- AMD business marketing services. AT&T Her experience in sales and Cisco Foundation marketing will help Bill Wilson Federated Department Stores Foundation Center build stronger relationships in the community Greater Bay Bancorp Foundation and bolster its finances. The Health Trust “I have personally witnessed how important it is to Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley have resources available to youth who are facing John S. and James L. Knight Foundation difficult times in their lives,” said Chris. “My goal is to KITS-FM Live 105 from their 2001 BFD concert increase awareness of the services Bill Wilson Center Lucile Packard Foundation for Children offers and to expand the number of funding sources Macy’s West available to the agency.” Sharks Foundation Skoll Community Fund Beyond her business obligations, Chris makes time Robert N. and Florence Slinger Fund to work with youth directly. She volunteers in a Wells Fargo Foundation program which teaches14 to 17-year-old girls how to write a business plan. The girls enter their work Our appreciation also goes to the organizations into a competition.