Do1Thing Blog

Melissa stops by with donations and a smile.

Andres has had his teddy bear since he was 1 year old and it’s traveled the world with him.

“I’ve had it everywhere through everything. I’ve had it since before my mother left me,” said Andres. “We’ve been to Nicaragua (his mother’s home), to New York, California, Washington, the road trips, the street.”

Andres likens it to the Harry Potter character who puts his soul into an object. “That bear is basically my soul.”

Andres loves baseball, wants to be a graphic designer and plays guitar.

Dave Einsel photographs Andres with his cherished teddy bear. (Photo by Smiley N. Pool)

As we consider the plight of runaway and homeless teenagers on this Valentine’s Day, I’d like to toss out two numbers — $9.2 million and $18 million.

First, let’s talk about the $9.2 million. In May 2008, Daybreak of Dayton, a nonprofit organization that has been helping homeless and runaway teenagers since 1975, opened a new shelter in a former dry cleaning plant. The bright, peach-colored brick building holds a 16-bed emergency shelter for homeless youth, ages 10 to 18; 24 furnished apartments for youths 18 to 21, offices, a kitchen, recreation rooms, a play area for the babies and toddlers that come with the young mothers, and a computer lab for job training.

Private donors raised more than $6 million of the total $9.2 construction cost. The rest came from government grants and other public funding.

It is a bright place where frightened, often abused, young people can feel safe, sometimes for the first time in their lives.

The average stay in the emergency shelter is two to three weeks; older teens can stay longer in the apartments. The place is full almost every night.

Daybreak has another 33 apartments in the community and works with at least 200 “street outreach” clients, young people who can’t or won’t come into the shelter. Those who stay in the apartments pay $40 a month toward the rent, which is subsidized by Daybreak. They also have to meet the terms of their individual contracts. This means getting job training or going to school, working, attending counseling, staying sober.

The nonprofit’s total budget is about $3 million a year to keep services going 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at the shelter and throughout the community.

Forty beds at the shelter times 365 nights a year is 14,600 bed-nights a year. Or put another way, that is 14,600 times a year that homeless children and youths don’t have to sleep on the street or stay in abusive situations.

As I walked through the new Daybreak facility yesterday, I admired the cheerful daycare area with its white cribs and bright educational toys, the streamlined apartments, the lounge with sofas and a flat-screen TV. The social worker accompanying me, nodded but she looked worried. What was I going to write?

“You know, there are some people who say it’s too nice. That we’re giving them too much,” she said.

I was surprised. The new building is clean and nice and all that, but it’s hardly luxurious.

“I think they would feel differently if they could see what we see with these kids,” she said. “But they just hear the numbers and well…”

How much is too much to save a child? To save 50 or 100 or 500 children? How much is too much to combat homelessness in one of the most economically depressed regions of the country?

To answer that question, let’s consider the $18 million.

Last September at a Sotheby’s art auction, the British shock artist Damien Hirst sold a calf carcass pickled in formaldehyde and encased in a Lucite box for $18 million. The hooves were cast in solid, 18-karat gold. As record-setting as $18 million was for this so-called “animal art,” that price paled next to the $100 million that Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull brought a few years ago.

Now, one can argue that the $9.2 million spent for a new shelter for homeless children and youths has nothing to do with a sum of almost twice that amount spent at an art auction for a pickled calf with golden hooves. But I don’t see it that way. The way we spend our money, individually and as a society, says a lot about our priorities and about who we are.

Which investment would you rather make? Nine million dollars to improve the lives of countless teenagers? Or $18 million to look at a dead cow suspended in formaldehyde?

Children? Pickled cow? Children? Pickled cow?

Gee, that’s a tough one…

— Debbie M. Price, Dayton, Ohio.

A steady stream of cars keeps pulling up to drop off donations of clothing, toiletries and gift cards. One resident is waving a banner, cheerleader style, flagging cars passing by. Others are taking turns greeting people, unloading cars and rolling carts away. The carts are filling up faster than the kids can get them emptied out.

Everyone from Girl Scouts to professors has shown their love in a big way today. One girl offered personalized heart art to the residents and staff collecting donations, while donors toured the grounds and got to know the residents a little bit better. Some of the donors even took snapshots of the day’s events. Maybe we’ll see them on the Do1Thing Web site.

Sara pushes Christalyn as they race to return a bin for another round of donations. (Photo by Smiley N. Pool)

With all the donation coming in, volunteers are desperately needed to sort out the bags in the clothing room.

Fengyu visits to drop off art supplies and stays to document the day.

The Covenant House, a residence for homeless teens is having an open house today from 9am to 5pm. The residence is located on 41st street just west of 9th avenue. We got to take a tour of the building with photographers.

In the 3rd floor common room, the walls are covered in drawings and paintings.

Board games line the shelves against a wall.

A resident is being interviewed by a Do 1 Thing photographer in the common room.

We’re sitting at the front desk of Covenant House — a madhouse of activity as donations and volunteers pour in to participate in Do 1 Thing. As you enter, the first thing, you are given a big hug by Momma Gwen, aka Gwendolyn Ross, a Covenant House 8-year veteran career development specialist. Momma Gwen is overwhelmed by the number of homeless teens in Newark and hopes that they could one day build more shelters for them. But today BIg Momma’s feeling good because she’s got a good cup of coffee and she can face the day when the kids are going to get very special attention from the community and the nation.

To the right, one entire room is beginning to pile high with donations as trucks and cars arrive with bags of clothes, food, TV sets, furniture and myriad other items. There’s a line of girls in their cheerleading outfits from St. Phillips School in Clifton, NJ. They’ve collected toiletries at all their basketball games throughout the county. Other kids from area schools are passing out blue wristbands to signify the Do 1 Thing cause for homeless teens.

David Hall is a tall happy man wearing a gold cross. He’s the site director of Covenant House Newark and is keeping an eye on all the donations as they roll in.

Ingrid Hayward is manning the front desk on this cold day with the front door open to the elements. She’s a volunteer with the Newark Coalition Against Human Trafficking, another huge and underreported problem in itself. Ingrid says she’s glad to get out of bed this Saturday AM, even though she usually prefers to drink her coffee in bed on Saturdays. “My husband was going to come pick me up an hour ago, but he’s never going to get me out of here now!”

Signs for Do 1 Thing on 41st Street and in the lobby of Covenant House.

A party is being planned. In the visitor center, tables are covered in cards and candy.

A pile of shopping bags are already accumulating by the door.

Brenda came by with an entire car full of donations.