Youth Outreach Day -- Let's Make It Happen!!!
Oct 30 '09 (Updated Nov 01 '09)
The Bottom Line It isn't easy being a kid these days (an understatement)...
As of Wednesday night into Thursday morning, I've given my profile page a major makeover. I'm still not done with it, as I'll be changing some of my links at the top of the page as soon as I've built places for them to go to, but I've gotten the part you're supposed to decorate all finished.
I'm much better at getting html to work than I used to be, so I'll be changing everything more often to go along with the time-of-year, etc.
Anyway, I'd love for you to go check it out. I think you'll love how it looks. It even has a widget on it to allow people to keep track of my tweets at Twitter.
At the very top of the decorated section of my profile page is a wonderful graphic showing a rainbow of kids standing hand-in-hand with the words I've used for the title of this writing right below them.
Below all of that is a message to all who venture there...
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Invisible Youth Network had its first celebration of Youth Outreach Day on Saturday, October 10 and would like to see it officially proclaimed as an annual event taking place on the second Saturday of October.
We have put together a petition that we'll be sending to President Obama as soon as we've collected a minimum of 1000 signatures, and you can take a look at it by going here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/enact-youth-outreach-day
Although just your signature would be a very welcome addition to our petition, it would add even more oomph! to our request if you would share some of your thoughts using the comment option.
Warmly,
Ainsley Jo Phillips :-)
Founding Member
Invisible Youth Network
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Just what is Youth Outreach Day?
It's a special time set aside where communities come together to address the needs of our future -- with our future being the next generation of adults (our youth).
Even during these stressful times, at least some of our children, teens, and young adults lead relatively carefree lives.
However, there are others who definitely don't, and we can't keep wearing blinders and ignoring this.
Do you realize, for instance, that, in the San Diego, CA area alone, there are an estimated 4000 young people (on average, between the ages of 9 and 15 with some older and some younger) living their lives without a real address!?!
Many of them live in secluded, wooded areas (such as found in parks, etc.) where they have built little communities that have mere survival as their primary purpose.
Don't think for a minute that these kids are living the life of Riley with some kind of generator set up to power TVs, stereos, computers, and other electronic equipment so that they can be living a life without rules and curfews--as in staying up and eating pizza until 2 a.m. on a school night while watching MTV and playing video games.
They weren't running away from home to get away from having to obey reasonable rules, going to school on a regular basis, etc.
The homeless youth who end up living in San Diego are--more likely than not--originally from other places than San Diego. They have been known to get to this area from as far away as the East Coast by any means that they can because of the relatively-more-favorable year round climate that would make a year round camp-out much more tolerable.
They haven't chosen this lifestyle because they think it's fun--they have chosen it because they see it as their only chance at survival.
What they have run away from back home seems worse to them than being out in the elements and in danger of encountering predators, both human and non-human.
Some of them have been abused within their homes in one or more of the following ways: physically, sexually, and verbally (the latter not meaning a little scolding for breaking curfew but, instead, a constant belittling to the point that their self-esteems nearly evaporate--as in how would you like to be told day after day that you're a waste of space and your mom wishes she had aborted you?).
Others dealt with abuse outside the home that they felt powerless to do anything about.
We're talking about these kids who dread going to school because they know that they're going to encounter one or more bullies who go beyond mere taunting words to actually beating them up.
In the case of taunting words, there's a difference between a little teasing and what a lot of kids go through.
Most kids who get teased a little don't end up getting depressed and running away from home (or staying home and ending up doing something destructive to themselves and/or others).
The kids who end up going to extreme measures are those who receive heavy-duty verbal abuse from their peers day and and day out.
If these kids practically freak out at the thought of school--where they actually get physically ill over the thought of it and/or tearfully beg their parents not to send them--it's more likely a reaction to the dread of facing such encounters day after day than it is that they were too busy surfing the Internet to prepare for a test and want to get out of taking it until they can cram for it in a day or two.
Before you're tempted to judge these street kids, judge the faculty and staff who continued to look the other way instead of making it stop. Judge those even more who have joined in on the "fun."
Yes, there ARE those idiots who, somehow, mananged to get licensed to teach who abuse their position by picking out one or more students as whipping boys and whipping girls.
Take the case of the middle-school-age girl who wasn't even overweight, in my opinion, but, simply, curvy as opposed to being scarecrow-thin.
Her male phys. ed. teacher taped a sign to her behind reading:
KICK ME! I'M TOO FAT!
This young lady was somebody who appeared on a tv talk show here in the past few years.
However, some of this kind of thing even went on when I was in school.
I remember this one little girl with learning disabilities whose fourth grade teacher had spent the year working with her strong points. Her self-esteem had really blossomed, and her grades were better, too.
Then, she entered fifth grade.
Her teacher(?) was new to our school district, and she must have been angry about something and needed a little victim on whom to vent whatever was frustrating her, and Terri was tagged "it" by her.
I remember the first grading period and how Terri came onto the bus and flung herself into my arms sobbing hysterically. She showed me a report card where the majority of her grades were failing ones. Even her penmanship received a C- or a D, and she had nice handwriting.
I would later find out from both Terri and her mom what a day-to-day nightmare it was for Terri going to her fifth grade class, as this sorry excuse for a teacher had actually turned most of her classmates against her.
It got so bad that the family actually rented out their house in the country and moved into a house in town to put Terri in another school district where she could make a fresh start. She didn't come back to the South Madison School District until she had finished junior high (like middle school and, at that time, consisting of grades 7, 8, and 9).
She began her sophomore year at Pendleton Heights High School and graduated with the Class of 1976.
As for that piece-of-work who screwed her up in fifth grade...I don't recall her returning for another year, and I say, "Good riddance! I hope that she never taught in another classroom--NEVER!!!"
The difference between how it was in the 1968-69 school year and how it is today is that it seems as if those who are in charge (not all, mind you, but I'm talking about too many of them, because--as was shown with Terri--even one is too many, and there are far more than one these days--either secretly (or not so secretly, as in the case of the phys. ed. teacher(?)) enjoy this kind of thing, don't want to deal with it, or feel powerless to deal with it.
Some have even been in denial that what's happening is that farspread of a problem.
I remember talking to a friend who teaches in the early grades a few years ago. This woman--a few years younger than I am--has a good heart and is a great teacher. However, she, somehow, wasn't getting the picture that I was.
What I was seeing was kids growing up too fast and not having the same kinds of fun that this teacher and I did as we were growing up.
Her reply was that it probably just looked that way to us because we were older and that these kids were, basically, happy and would grow up and look back on their young lives with fond memories.
Perhaps, in her own classroom, this was the case, as she taught in a smaller school out in the country from a town in the Midwest.
As it has turned out, even kids who were, basically, happy and carefree in the early grades of school ended up dealing with a lot of angst once they reached their teens.
Sure! It's true that not all young people have gone this route, but too many for my comfort zone to be staying uninvolved.
There is something wrong with the picture when any, some, or all of the following even exists for some--and something VERY wrong with the picture when it exists in a large/increasing number and few seem to be all that anxious to do much to fix the picture unless it involves little or no investment of time and/or money on their parts:
1. Young people--for a number of reasons--preferring to live outdoors all year in conditions that are neither safe nor cushy to living at home and/or even elsewhere in their hometown.
2. Young people finding the lure of joining gangs appealing--or even seen as necessary for their safety/survival.
3. An increase in suicides among people who are under the age of 18.
4. Major crimes being committed by not only teens but, also, by children young enough to have no pubic hair and some remaining baby teeth.
5. Kids barely out of diapers--and some even still in diapers--being diagnosed with depression. Whether this is a ploy by Big Pharma to peddle more pills or whether these kids are actually depressed, there is still something wrong with this picture.
6. While we're on the subject of pills, I think it's VERY wrong how quickly schools want to have their students "managed" by Ritalin instead of taking the time to be creative and bring out their potential.
7. Those tragic news reports of kids coming to school with weapons and blowing away their classmates before (usually) ending up taking their own lives--and how, time and time again, it's the same old story. People just weren't expecting this to happen. Why would this student do something like this? And some remember that this was one of the students who always seemed to be getting laughed at/picked on.
8. That there IS so much taunting and bullying going on in schools that seem to be getting a kind of nod and wink from faculty and staff.
9. That--when things get too much for the parents to handle on their own--they're more likely to find more of these spirit-breaking boot-camps available as an option to "help" their troubled kids than they are to find programs that operate by encouraging the young people in their care to work to find their best selves: programs with staff who really want to take the time to listen to these kids instead of getting in their faces and shouting them down until they dissolve into tears along with making them do dangerous activities such as performing 100 push-ups out in the hot sun.
And I can list plenty more examples of why something is very wrong with the life picture being painted/life book being written depicting the reality of today's youth.
A few days ago, I heard them most ridiculous news story I've heard in awhile--and there are plenty of ridiculous ones to go around.
It seems as if a man--in the privacy of his home--got up in the morning and put on the coffee to brew.
Like myself, he must have one of those people who sleep in skin pajamas--and it seemed as if he decided to start making his coffee before donning anything else.
Meanwhile, out on the sidewalk that ran past his home at a considerable distance, a woman was walking her little girl to school when she happened to notice his choice of fashion as he went past his front door on the way to the kitchen--and caught a glimpse of him again from about the chest up in another bunch of windows.
Her response was to call the police on him instead of doing something more neighborly like finding out who lived there and calling him on the phone or writing him a letter to let him know that he could be seen from the street.
The police actually came to arrest him and charged him with "indecent exposure."
Why is it that people want to get involved in ridiculous "civic duties" like this but won't donate a cent towards reaching out to hurting children?
Why is it that the long arm of the law is so anxious to go after a man making coffee in the nude in the privacy of his home but drag their feet when it comes to getting to the bottom of the generations of abuse--even MURDER--that has been committed against young inmates by the staff at places like that reform school in Marianna, Florida?
If you want to know more about this and other horror stories of abuse of wards of the state, enter the name of Roger Dean Kiser/Roger D. Kiser/Roger Kiser in a search engine (Note: Consider using the Good Search option you'll find on my profile page for that, as your search will help to raise much-needed funds for Invisible Youth Network--or, if you prefer, can be set to another option should you have another place to which you'd like for money to be donated. Your search/searches will be free to you, but your clicks will generate donations!).
Roger has several books and DVDs out and can be found at the Gather website under the handle of AuthorRDK.
Roger has, personally, lived this experience, having been orphaned by desertion at the age of four, becoming a ward of the state of Florida, and experiencing abuse not only at the "reform" school in Marianna (where he had been sent by a VERY abusive authority figure, to say the least) but, also, in every orphanage (at least two with the worst one being one where he spent years being used as a slave, sex toy, and whipping boy).
Because Roger has not only heard of this kind of abuse but has, also, experienced it, he has an extra amount of heart (called empathy) that has been opened to today's orphans.
The same can be said for Russell T. Hartsaw, the Founder & Chairman of Invisible Youth Network.
When Russell was only nine years old, he came home from school and couldn't believe what he saw--in fact, didn't want to believe what he saw so badly that he took off to his best friend's house where the two of them played together as if nothing had happened.
In fact, Russell was the only one who had witnessed this, so his best friend and his mother were also unaware until it came time to eat supper.
It was then that Russell's friend's mother asked him if he would like to stay and eat with them, and Russell told her that he did, so she said that she would call his mother to check and make sure this would be all right with her.
"You won't be able to do that!" Russell told her.
When she asked him why not, he gave her the most incredible story she had ever heard--one that she found hard to believe was true. Surely, Russell had just gotten mixed up and had gone down the wrong street.
She wanted to reassure him that he had to be wrong, so she put both boys in the car and drove to the mobile home that Russell shared with his parents and Boston terrier, Toy.
When she got there, she found out that there had been no mistake on Russell's part, so she called her husband (the local Chief of Police) at work.
It was hard for him to believe, too, but he had it checked out.
Incredible as it might seem, Russell had left for school that morning from the family home--but, when he returned from school, nothing was there. No mom, no dad, no dog--and not even their mobile home!
A police search of both Florida and the surrounding states turned up nothing.
My own personal thoughts on this is that Russell's parents didn't have much choice in the matter--that they might have been part of a witness protection program and couldn't take Russell with him since he had shown himself in the past to have a mind of his own and might not go along with the instructions necessary for everybody to have a new, safe life.
Likely, they believed that some relatives who lived near-by might end up taking him in, but this didn't happen.
Instead, Russell, like Roger, became a ward of the state of Florida and was sent to an orphanage.
For a number of reasons--one of those being in hopes of finding his parents and dog--Russell would frequently run away from the orphanage. This, in turn, made those in charge at the orphanage decide that Russell was a juvenile delinquent who needed to go to reform school.
Although he wasn't there at the same time, he was sent to the same reform school in Marianna of which Roger has written so many horror stories--and, during his stay there (lasting from when he was only 11 years old until shortly after he turned 13), he was taken twice to the infamous White House for some very brutal "discipline."
Those two trips to the White House weren't the only abuse that he received there. He was also molested and in other ways bullied on a number of occasions by older, stronger boys.
After his release from reform school, he was in foster care for a time, but he ended up riding his thumb to different places and left Florida for good once he had turned sixteen when he headed out to California.
Russell has a lot of interesting stories to tell about being on the road, getting with other street kids along the way and upon arrival in California, and how his life went after that.
He prefers to tell those stories in his own words and to the people with whom he wishes to share them.
However, I will give you the short version of how his life went once he became an adult.
Russell was--and still is--a hard worker, and he ended up being hired for responsible jobs and doing them well.
However, he also had a chip on his shoulder that had been put there by how he had been treated by the state of Florida from the age of nine until he finally left there.
Although he met some good people in his travels outside of Florida, he also believed that--with a few exceptions to this rule--those in authority really didn't give a hoot about kids like him.
Even though Russell didn't become a street kid until several years later, he considered himself to be homeless and alone from the time that he lost his family and was turned over to the state, because he never considered any of the places where he ended up living/existing to truly be his home: not the orphanage, certainly not the reform school, and not even foster care where he went after that.
In short, Russell found nothing wrong with stealing a little here and there from those he saw as better off--which ended up landing him in adult prison for the first time in his life.
Something happened to Russell in prison. Even with the lack of freedom to come and go as he pleased, he found a safe and predictable environment in which to live.
When he was released into the real world for the first time after many years in this kind of environment, he felt like a fish out of water and purposely did something (his crimes were never violent ones, by the way) that would send him back there.
This happened on one more occasion, but, this time, he became one of the lucky ones who had the opportunity to attend college from prison. Once he graduated (with a B.S. in Criminal Justice), he became part of the faculty in the prison's adult education program.
This was a prison job--just like the various other prison jobs that inmates do in return for small wages--but it paid somewhat better than, say, making furniture (sold at a greater price that would both take care of the feeding and housing of inmates--so that's really a myth about so much of our taxes going to pay for these guys to sit around and watch tv--plus turn an extra profit).
Regarding the above paragraph, I can't speak for how things are done in local jails or state prisons, but Russell was part of the federal prison system.
Russell and I have both come to the conclusion--and there are many others who share our view--that prisons are a business, and countless people profit from the manpower/womanpower generated by their populations.
Perhaps, this might be one reason why more isn't being done to truly help our homeless and/or otherwise at-risk youth. Leaving them as they are so that they will have a good chance of becoming part of the prison system's future might be a kind of clever and well-thought-out business investment plan.
This, of course, could go out in an entirely different direction in the writing of this piece, so I will go back to staying on-task before I have an article within an article.
The last time that Russell left prison (In May of 2003 after spending--when he counts the time he spent in reform school and, during his travels by thumb, in various juvenile halls on charges of vagrancy during the time when he was still a minor--an estimated 44 years on the inside), he went to see a therapist for several months in hopes of getting help to feel better about all that was involved when it comes to surviving on the outside.
Since he was 62 at the time, this meant that all but 18 years of his entire life had been spent on the inside.
When May of 2010 arrives, he will have been on the outside for seven straight years!
In a lot of ways, he's glad to be a free man, but he says that there are still many times when he finds himself thinking that his previous environment contained many people who were more morally-upstanding than a number of those whom he has encountered on the outside.
Even though Russell sees his life experiences (both as a street kid on the outside and as an inmate on the inside) as ones from which he's learned a lot, he still wants better for today's generation of kids.
Russell lives on a limited income from a disability check that has, in the past, been supplemented by donating blood plasma (until starting to have strokes made him no longer eligible), doing odd jobs for friends, and giving free lectures (but most audiences loved to tip him) to university classes taught by a close friend of his.
He will, occasionally, pamper himself, but most of his pension (after rent, other bills, and his food/toiletries budget) has been spent on something near and dear to his heart: taking care of the homeless kids in his area.
Obviously, one man with his limited income can't take care of every single one, so he has tried to generate an interest so that others will follow his lead.
On January 15, 2007--a date very special to many of us longtime Epinionators, as it would have been the 47th birthday of our beloved Mark "Hard-To-Please" Arnold (http://www.epinions.com/user-hard_to_please), Russell and I first met online at a discussion site called Duno.
Russell was inviting people to come look at his website, and, when I took him up on his offer, I was very favorably-impressed.
One of my 2007 resolutions had been to put together a kind of online dream team who would get together to discuss the various members of society who were being allowed to fall through the cracks and to devise plans of action to put a stop to this throwing away of fellow human beings.
After checking out the contents of his website, I knew that Russell would be a candidate for this dream team without question!
An actual dream team never ended up being formed along those lines.
However, Russell shared with me the problem of the growing number of homeless youth in his area alone, and he told me of his dreams to get something started that would, eventually, address the needs of youth throughout the entire world.
I began letting people know about Russell and his dreams, and we soon were in touch with others who were interested in making this happen.
We officially launched as Invisible Youth Network on March 26, 2007.
We had hoped by now that our organization would have grown to the place where it reached more young people than it now does--but we're, at the same time, grateful to those who have gotten it as far as it has gotten.
On Saturday, October 10, 2009, we had our first Youth Outreach Day.
Out in San Diego, Russell and his two recently-adopted sons (As he lives in a studio apartment, they mostly stay with a couple of families from an area church that has been working with him on getting some of our street kids into good homes, but both boys consider him to be their dad, and they're frequent visitors to his place and stay in contact with him by phone and e-mail as well.) set up a cook-out at Balboa Park in an area close to where some of our street kids hang out. The kids who venture out of seclusion were in attendance, enjoying the food there and, also, taking some back to their secluded friends.
Some people happened to notice the cook-out going on and donated food and money. There were those with empty rooms from where their kids had gone into the service, to college, etc., and some of our kids went home with them.
In Indianapolis, one of our volunteers passed out sack lunches to street kids.
In Canada, one of our volunteers ran a race to raise funds, sending part of the donations to IYN headquarters and using part to take some local street kids out for Thanksgiving dinner. The Canadian Thanksgiving takes place a little over a month before our own celebration here in the states.
In Kentucky, one of our volunteers had planned on having a craft sale that Saturday. However, her husband had to work that day, and she didn't have transportation, so she did her craft sale (at the store where she had been invited to set up) a few days later. She also wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to proclaim the second Saturday of every October as Youth Outreach Day.
Other grass roots celebrations took place here and there.
The letter that our Kentucky volunteer put together was put into a flyer form by a volunteer from England and put into a petition form by another volunteer from Puerto Rico.
Volunteers from as far away as Sri Lanka and Australia participated--and continue to participate.
At this time, I would like to invite you to go to my profile page, click on the link that will take you to the petition, read what Youth Outreach Day is all about, and, hopefully, include your signature.
When we have collected at least 1000 signatures, we will be sending this petition on its way to President Obama.
Just your signature is sufficient, but you also have the chance to include a few of your own words why such a day is important when it comes to getting more people to focus on the needs of both those kids who have ended up living outdoors and those who are staying in their own homes and/or communities but facing challenges that nobody--and certainly not kids--should have to face!
Thank you for your help--and please spread the word by sharing a link to this article with your friends, relatives, and area businesses, churches, schools, and other organizations.
For more information about Invisible Youth Network, please visit our website:
http://invisibleyouthnetwork.net
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Epinions.com ID:
AinsleyJo
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Member: Ainsley Jo Phillips
Location: Anderson, Indiana
Reviews written: 269
Trusted by: 220 members
About Me:
I'm hosting a write-off: http://www.epinions.com/content_5362983044
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