HOWARDS HEART
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Mission Statement
As teens involved in the foster system grow up, their needs grow with them. School supplies, college application fees, and extracurricular activities all cost time and money that many vulnerable teens and families find beyond their reach. We team up with teens, youth, and their team members, including caseworkers, mentors, foster and bio parents, attorneys, and CASAs to identify where they need extra support; we work to fill their wishes within our community through fundraising and making connections with our fellow non-profits. We strive to go beyond the basics, working to connect teens with scholarships and financial assistance for summer camps, occupational internships, and extracurricular courses in an effort to help students explore their interests and passions. Our goal is to offer educational, cultural, and other enrichment opportunities that teens in foster care are too often denied. We knew from the start that we needed to create an organization where teens and youth in foster care were offered a chance to speak for themselves. We formed Howard’s Heart with a vision of focusing entirely on what our teens identified as their wants and needs, making the driving force behind where and how we spend our funding entirely based on the opinions, ideas, and requests we get from them. The more we grow the more we hear from our teens that they so appreciate being able to make their own requests, get what they need, and feel like someone is listening to them. In fact, at the end of our first Teen Voices event, one of our youth who had participated said, “Just being in the room with adults who don’t have to be here, who are listening and responding to what we want, is giving me hope. You have already made a difference.”
About This Cause
Howard's Heart has four main program areas: Special Requests, Essentials, and the Backpack and Holiday Drives. Special Requests are the most important way we support teens in foster care. By asking the teens what their needs are, where they could use support most, we ensure that the goods and services we provide to them make the greatest impact on their lives. Amy and Jennifer spoke to caseworkers and teens to find out what was needed most. They shared their experiences with us: what it's like to struggle in an underfunded system without enough foster homes to go around, and with a nonprofit community that is almost entirely focused on younger kids. Some had never been asked what THEY needed or wanted. Our teens ask us for what they need and we do everything that we can to deliver it. We have provided things like tools for an apprenticeship, funds for a drama club trip to New York, a bike, maternity clothes, laptops, and more. Every teen is unique and every request is special.