Team Crisafulli is Created!
December 31, 2011 by Susan Clarke · Leave a Comment
THANK YOU all for supporting my charity of choice, Fostering Opportunities Dollars for Scholars. We raised $1500 and have created the Team Crisafulli Scholarship for 2012!
In addition to serving on the Board since 2003, I mentor students. Two of mine have graduated! I am currently mentoring Sade. My description of her after our first meeting in 2007 was, “She’s a very angry, inner city kid.” Mentoring Sade has been like peeling an onion. Every layer I got through allowed me to connect with her on a deeper level. She has turned into the most beautiful young woman! I am so proud of her and all of her accomplishments. She graduated from Cuyamaca College in 2009 and went on to SDSU with the Alex Smith Foundation Scholarship. She will graduate in May 2012, with a degree in Social Work and is already taking about studying for her Masters. I will be mentoring our Team Crisafulli Scholarship student and as soon as I know who that is I will let you know.
Sade's Graduation in 2009
Our chapter was formed, in March 2002, by a group consisting of social workers, teachers of at-risk students, and nurses. They decided something had to be done for their foster kids, who when they turned 18, were “aged” out of the system. Our first scholarships were a $100 each. Wow! We have come such a long way!
As of this year, we have awarded 186 scholarships to our students for a total of $300,921. 14 of them have graduated with a college degrees! Youth in foster care are 44% less likely to graduate from high school and after emancipation, 40 – 50 percent never complete high school. Only 5% of former foster youth will continue their education past high school and of those only 2% will graduate.
We are a locally operated non-profit scholarship foundation. There is NO paid staff at FODFS. We are ALL VOLUNTEER Directors serving on the Board. When asked, “Do board members get paid?” The response given with a hearty laugh is, “No, it costs to be a board member.”
Our Mission is to continue expanding post secondary educational opportunities for the foster youth of San Diego County, by providing them mentors and financial support. They are in need of funding for housing, food, and transportation, as well as, their education.
We believe our youth are the greatest resource in our community and it only takes one person to make a difference in a young person’s life. Is that person you? I would LOVE to have you on my team!
Dreams Really Do Come True
May 5, 2009 by Susan Clarke · Leave a Comment
Sade & Susan at DFS Scholarship Award Luncheon
Every month Sade and I get together and go out to eat. The mission is to try new types of food. For our April dinner Sade said, “I’ve never eaten French food.” So I took her to Bleu Boheme in Kensington. Over dinner we talk about what’s going on in each other’s lives. This day she told me she had applied for the Alex Smith Foundation Scholarship. It’s $10,000 a year at San Diego State University. This is huge! She seemed a bit hesitant like she may not have a chance at it.
I told her, “You got it! Repeat after me, I Sade, am the recipient of the Alex Smith Foundation Scholarship. (All goals need to be specific to the person and in the present tense as if they have already happened.)
Well, two days ago I go an email from Sade that read, “The good news!!!!…. as always!!! you were right… I got the Alex Smith 10,000 dollar scholarship!!!!! YAY!!!”
This is a life changing event for Sade. She is on cloud nine to say the least! I sent her the link to my website to show her the article I had written about her and Dollars for Scholars Fostering Opportunities.
Her reply was this. “I just saw the website!!! WOW! Thank you so much Susan! Having you in my life has made things that I thought were “stressful” turn into something FUN. The positive attitude that you have is amazing and you’re an inspiration to me. You’re right, when I first met you I was quiet, but after you started sharing your life story with me I began to think, “This is someone I believe I can open up to.” Most people want you to open up to them and they don’t tell you anything about themselves, but with you it was the opposite and the day I realized that, I knew I could come to you and know that you wouldn’t judge me. Thank you for not judging me, looking at my faults or holding them against me, instead you used them to help me better myself, THANK YOU!!!!”
She is such a funny girl. Faults? What faults?
You Really Can Make a Difference!
April 30, 2009 by Susan Clarke · Leave a Comment
Governor’s Wall at the State Capitol
I have to tell you that being a mentor to my former foster youth is so rewarding to me. To watch them open up and blossom is just so incredible. Sade, is an inner city kid who I started mentoring in August, 2008. She was very skeptical and not real talkative on our first meeting. I had to pry information out of her. It’s kind of like peeling an onion, each time another layer comes off. And every time I see her she is more beautiful, inside and out.
I am sharing the email I received from Sade so you can see how much impact we have on these young people’s lives and how proud I am of her.
“I wanted to share with you all what I did this past weekend. I’m on a board called CCY (California Coalition for Youth) and we do a bunch of advocacy work for foster youth, former foster youth, and homeless youth. Every year we have a conference and this year we just had ours. Our Executive Director Heather Dearing asked me if I wanted to share my story and I said yes, but I had no idea how many people I would touch. I walked into the Capital and the pictures that I’ve attached for you all was right next to Arnold Schwarzenegger and people where reading the stories and asking me to take pictures with them. The point of this email isn’t to “show off,” it’s to thank you all. Somehow, some way, you all have played a part in my life that allowed me to get to this point and I wanted to thank you all for “molding” me into the person I am today. Almost everyone I’m sending this email to has seen me through the worst of the worst, you’ve seen me when everyone else gave up on me, and this display at the Governor’s wall is proof of how you can help someone if you JUST DON’T GIVE UP…”
Boys & Girls Club
April 6, 2009 by Susan Clarke · Leave a Comment
Dollars for Scholars For Foster Kids
April 6, 2009 by Susan Clarke · Leave a Comment
On any single day in San Diego County approximately 7,000 kids are living in an “out-of-home” placement through the Foster program. Of the kids who leave the program after reaching age 18, between 60-70% end up homeless in San Diego and 60% of the women will have become pregnant by the age of 20. Only 5% of such former foster children will go on to college and only 2% will earn a college degree. We are trying to help these kids make a productive life.
- Dollars for Scholars Walk for Education
Dollars for Scholars is a non-profit national organization whose purpose is to expand educational opportunities for youth. Our chapter is providing assistance to a special group of children in our community that need our support at a crucial time in their lives. Our mission is to assist the young adults of the foster care system, children who, upon turning 18 years old, lose all funding sources for housing, food, and post-secondary education. Some of these students dream of continuing their education to better their lives and to make a positive contribution to their communities, but with very little resources financially and emotionally, even the very best students often drop out of the educational system. Our goal is to expand the educational opportunities for these foster students by providing them financial support and adult mentoring.The common element in Dollars for Scholars chapters is community-based fundraising for scholarships awarded to local students. In 2007, Dollars for Scholars volunteers awarded over $403,000 in scholarships to San Diego students. Impressive, sure, but we can and must do better for the nearly half-a-million students who were academically qualified for college but can’t afford to go. What is unique about this new chapter is that we are touching the lives of very needy kids… the foster kids in our community.
Holiday Party
Fostering Opportunities Dollars for Scholars provides personal mentors and financial support for foster youth in San Diego County, to help them achieve their educational goals. We are a locally operated and supported non-profit scholarship foundation, managed by an all-volunteer Board. In 2008 our organization provided 50 scholarships (24 in the spring, 26 in the fall) and services to these worthy and needy young adults.
In 2004, Rebecca, a young lady who graduated from San Diego’s Foster Program told us this is how she would explain to other kids what it is like to be a foster kid. Rebecca has worked hard to make a life of her own and has been a recipient of the Dollars for Scholars Fostering Opportunities program since 2003. In 2007, Rebecca graduated from Cal State San Marcos.
“Close your eyes and imagine for a moment that your parents died in a car crash, and that there was no other family for you to live with. Then imagine that the State placed you in a group home, which is basically a home for orphans. Here you have several people telling you what to do all the time having to ask to use the restroom and not being allowed to have any of your belonging because they may get stolen. Imagine not only trying to get along with, but also living with up to 100 different people. Every time you want to spend the night at a friend’s house that isn’t a part of your group home their parents must go to court with you and they have to get a background check. You only have 10 minutes each night to use the phone and that includes the calls to family, friends, social workers, and your attorney. If you get to leave the group home you must be accompanied by a staff member and you are only given $10 a month for spending. SO THAT MEANS NO MALL, NO HOMECOMING DANCES!!! All friends and boyfriends/girlfriends must be approved by your social worker. YOUR SOCIAL WORKER HAS ALL THE POWER, but they have 40 other cases so you can never get a hold of them. ”
Abdi & Sade Getting Scholarships w/Mentors Connie, Susan & Barbara
“Now imagine another situation where your parents abuse you in some way. You are removed from your home and placed in a foster home where the entire way this family does things is completely different from the way your family did things so you are always getting into trouble. Some homes put locks on the refrigerator. You feel like an outsider because you’re not ‘really’ a part of their family and their “real” kids get things like toys and clothes and you don’t.”
“Now imagine turning 18 in either of these situations. The court gives you $500 and says have a nice life. You have no family or friends (at least ones that aren’t in your same shoes) and you have to find a job in San Diego and a place to live. Your full time job pays $8 but your rent is $700 and in a bad neighborhood. What do you do??????”
It only takes one person to make a difference in a young person’s life. Is that person you? Donate now!