Central Florida's homeless kids need your help; here's how to pitch in - Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel |
| Posted: If you were moved by the stories of Central Florida homeless children featured Sunday on "60 Minutes," there are several ways you can help. And make no mistake: Your help is needed. "We have 1,500 other homeless children in this county," said Beth Davalos, coordinator for the Families in Transition Program for Seminole County Public Schools. "This is a national problem. We have 1.5 million homeless children in our nation. We need to address it. It's only getting worse." But viewers want to know about the children featured in Scott Pelley's report. An e-mail to the Sentinel read: "I need to know how I can help feed those children. There is room in my life to help them." Jacob Braverman, 14, shared his pain at losing the family home and moving in with neighbors. Since "60 Minutes" filmed his story in mid-December, his family has moved into transitional housing, supported by stimulus money, in Altamonte Springs. Destiny Corfee, 11, and her family talked frankly about living in a van before moving into an Altamonte Springs motel. (Destiny is a go-getter: Last year she collected more than 50,000 soda-can tabs to help Ronald McDonald House of Orlando.) The Corfees are still in a motel, but they're going into the Pathways to Home self-sufficiency program. Even so, David Corfee, the father, lost his job at the University of Central Florida. And the Corfees have no transportation: They lost the van they lived out of before going into the motel. If you have a job for him, contact Davalos. "Those families have gotten a lot of e-mails," Davalos said. "They were so brave to stand up and tell their stories. These children want other children to know they're not alone." Kevin Tedesco, spokesman for "60 Minutes," said the CBS newsmagazine had received more calls and e-mails than usual about the Central Florida story, and was sending them to Davalos or the charity Feeding America. "It's shaping up to be a very significant response just 12 hours since the broadcast," he said. Davalos suggests several paths to helping homeless kids: •Reach out to liaisons like her in other counties (see list) and make cash donations to those offices. •Bring nonperishable food in bags that the schools can give out to the children most in need. •Provide gift cards for food and gas. "Gift cards are the best thing to distribute," said Christina Savino, the homeless education liaison for Orange County Public Schools. "We have the Kids' Closet for anyone interested in donating clothes." Meredith Griffin, the Families in Transition liaison for Osceola Public Schools, said there were 125 kids identified as homeless when she started her job six years ago. That figured has jumped to 1,250. Griffin urged people who want to help to contact her, and she called the "60 Minutes" report excellent. "The best thing that this did was show awareness," Griffin said. "This is the shrinking middle class. It helped educate people about what's going on. Most of my families are working, but there's a lack of affordable housing and a workable wage." Davalos said the liaisons know every single homeless student in their communities. "We're a school district. All the donations go directly to the students," Davalos said. "These children are going through trauma and need support to come out feeling empowered. We can get them through it with community help." But that's just the start. "How will they become stable when they get a home?" Davalos asked. She directs people to the website for Pathways to Home and notes that 18 agencies in Seminole County are collaborating to help stabilize the families to become self-sufficient. Davalos, who was featured in the "60 Minutes" report, called it great and said she had received hundreds of e-mails. "They delivered a powerful message that educational groups have been trying to get across for years," she said. "Because some people don't understand how this trauma affects every area of these children's lives." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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