ARTICLE: Celebrating a group admirably serving community
By Ken Garcia, Examiner Staff Writer
Friday, Mar. 5 2010
A silent auction will be a major part of the festivities for City Youth Now's 60th anniversary dinner tonight. And that makes a lot of sense for an organization that stands up for people who can't speak for themselves.
That would be the thousands of lost and abused children through the years who have been cast adrift in the juvenile justice and foster care systems. City Youth Now serves as an auxiliary group for those children who spend time incarcerated, in court and in foster homes, in large part through addiction, family dysfunction, insufficient funds or outright neglect.
The term trouble-free has almost never been part of their existence. Yet, government "systems" aren't designed to make their lives easier. That's where City Youth Now comes in.
Last year alone, the organization answered the call to service more than 7,000 times to make sure the children in the system had adequate clothing, books, educational programs, health care, or something as simple as a bus pass or a prom dress. They may not all be essential needs, but they are human ones, and City Youth Now is the first organization in the United States to identify them and meet them on a large scale.
"We're just trying to raise awareness for our programs because we're one of the few organizations that can immediately address the needs for these kids," said Elizabeth Fairbanks, executive director of City Youth Now. "Some systems aren't designed to provide for basic needs. We are."
Tonight's event, which will be held at Bimbo's 365 Club (for more information, visit www.cityyouthnow.org), will include the presentation of two college scholarships to kids who bucked the system, graduated from high school and are now attending universities.
Talk about selling points.
City Youth Now has come a long way from the white-glove set that first identified the problems for incarcerated juveniles and set out to find ways to help them. But if the group's board has changed, its mission hasn't: helping problem children by associating them with people who lead normal lives.
The organization is designed to give juveniles something other than punishment, the one thing they probably know too well. Recently, it added a program to help them get their high school equivalency diploma, and another to provide internships and access to laptops.
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Press Contact:
Elizabeth Fairbanks
Executive Director
City Youth Now
elizabeth@cityyouthnow.org
