The San Diego Women's Foundation’s Post

Transcript

We are a nonprofit located in in North San Diego County dedicated to ending family homelessness. But we do it in a completely unique way. We have a 700 day Academy where our families come, they live on campus while they go through their coursework, and while they're going through their coursework, their kids are living on campus as well. So the average age of a person on our campus is nine years old. An alumni and when I came here, I definitely was impacted by this organization in so many different ways, even with my kids. So going through the entire process and going into what we call job search. The opportunity presented itself and I was able to work with, you know, the youth here but also network. These are all families that have dealt with addiction dependency of some sort and homelessness. And so these kiddos have have been on the streets with their families. In some of those cases have been, you know, couch surfing with their families or have been separated and have been living in foster care. So that is the the main thread that ties them all together as we are dealing with a severely trauma impacted. Population network with a lot of volunteers that come into the organization and and they help and one of those parts is in Kidzone. And within kids own is where we really build those relationships with the kids, taking them to do curriculum. Our kids Zone has really helped prepare kids for kindergarten here in San Diego County by giving them skills that they wouldn't otherwise have. You know, a lot of our, our kiddos come to us, they're, they're trauma impacted. They don't have the social emotional behaviors or skills that they need to be successful in the classroom. So Kidzone gives them the, the self help skills they need, you know, learning how to wash your hands, learning how to follow a routine. And then just that socialization and then learning to or giving them some skills to deal with some of the trauma that they've been impacted with the impact that the kids don't have. Solutions for changes had on my family is that my girls get to socialize with other kids. They get to play, do finger paintings, they paint rocks and they really have like a great time. Every time they come home, they're like, dad, look what I look what I made at the at the kids on and they really, really enjoy it. Solutions for change had no judgment on us or our family or the way we look towards the way we talked. They invited us in with open arms. There are big help to the community because it gives us time to be able to work on ourselves. It gives us time to be able to do like our staff work because we do do 12 step program as well as being here. So it's it benefits us in in many different ways. It's a really big help. The funding that we received from the San Diego Women's Foundation has been absolutely incredible and instrumental in our kids zone, not only in allowing us to pour into the director of that. Certifications with trainings which have just transformed how she acts and how she sees the kiddos as well, but also just in the physical structure. And we're actually going through a remodel right now with a nonprofit. You're always trying to maximize and utilize the space that you have. And so that funding has really allowed us to do that in an incredible way. And without that funding, like we wouldn't have a kids on. So it's been absolutely incredible.