An Easter blessing!

Street Youth Ministry's Strengthening the Family (STF) program helps our clients build stronger and healthier relationships with their children amidst many adversities in their lives. For the Easter STF, mothers were able to request Easter baskets for children in their custody. Thank you to Christy Che, Lisa Clarke, and Kim Weidmann (pictured) for sponsoring Easter baskets for our clients' children and Harriet Choffel for sponsoring Easter dinner kits for our clients!

 "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
-- James 1:5

• Prayers from Terry and Team
• Scenes from Easter
• One Client's Story
• Ways to Help - NOW!
• Client Growth
• Day in the Life
• What Our Friends Say
• SYMin Urgent Needs
• And One More Thing!

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   Welcome to our April prayer letter! Prayer is the foundation of everything we do at Street Youth Ministry.
    March and April are turning out to be such nice months so far at our new location. We recently took our Game Night outside, and clients and staff shot some basketball and tossed a football around our sports court.
   It's so nice to see relaxed and open acceptance of our community in such a wonderful environment. The fruit trees are blooming all around us. The prayer garden has new seedlings and plants in every bed. Clients wandered around it learning to identify the seedings.
    We pulled some fresh radishes. Two clients tasted their first fresh radishes and loved them! All of these things are in addition to practical services like supplies, providing groups for peer support, art therapy, Bible study and prayers, and all the one-on-one engagement our amazing team provides to our clients on a daily basis.
   It is fueled by the power of prayer, and we continue to be ever grateful for your important role in that!

Prayer garden

Sports court

Easter joy!

Clients celebrated Easter by gathering for activities and fellowship. Thanks to our volunteers for crafting cute sweets, buckets full of goodies and yummy casseroles.

We encourage
clients to find
productive paths

   Every organization needs a reason. This story (also available on video) shows why we love working with our clients. 
   Everybody has an idea about how to fix homelessness, but we are in the business of caring for individuals who experienced homelessness at a young age. That means we do something different than fixing.
   A client -- I'll call her Nadia -- found our phone number and called our Help Line. After a few questions, Nadia was transferred to a guidance counselor. She feared the prospect of living on the streets again. She had no job, no support, no money, no food, no clothes other than those on her back, no supplies, and she was desperate.
   Our guidance counselor, who has seen this many times, worked to provide some initial relief by inviting her to our Sunshine Store, where she could get clothing, food and supplies. She sent her resource listings for shelter. None of this is immediate, and all of it requires Nadia to be proactive.
  In a few days, Nadia came to our center and encountered our whole team, our Sunshine Store and our group events. That lifted her spirits and soul. Soon after her first visit, she got a callback from one of the shelters and moved in. It’s not necessarily a nice place, but it’s her home base. Encouraged by this, she began applying for jobs and got one in a high-tech assembly area.
   She works long hours but stays in touch with us and visits when she can. She continues to get supplies and clothing, and she’s saving money. She was recently disappointed because a car she had hoped to buy was sold before she could quite save enough money, but there will be another.
   Not all our clients have paths that look like this, but they all have paths and we encourage them to self-determine those paths and take agency in their lives. We don’t fix. Our primary product is guidance counseling, even though we have lots of food, clothing, and supplies.
 Terry

CONNECT.SYMin.org!

   We've updated our Connect.SYMin.org website so you can navigate quickly to areas we call Learn More, Big Helps, Serve, Reuse and Give. Here are some of our "hot button" needs right now:

3 outreach bags

We do outreach in at least five sessions every week. We distribute small bags of food or give people in need (regardless of age)bus passes so they can feed themselves in different ways. We give about 60 bags per week. 

Bread for sandwiches 

We go through a lot of sandwiches because our kitchen doesn't allow preparation of hot meals. We need about 18 loaves of bread per week but get only about six through donations.

Bags of chips

Bags containing all kinds of chips are inexpensive and easily attainable items that we can include in the various food bags we distribute on our weekly outreaches throughout Austin and into San Marcos

Underwear
Men's underwear in all sizes -- especially small and medium -- is heavily in demand. Donating 7 pair will keep us supplied for a while.

Spread the word

We'll send you a PDF of our poster and you place it in 20 locations in your neighborhood or elsewhere. Each contains a QR code to learn more quickly. .

Self-care bags
You or your group will provide 24 outreach self-care and toiletry bags filled with non-perishable items that give our homeless neighbors access to self-care products.

Main Title

Breakfast casseroles
Know a killer casserole recipe? We host many meals for our clients during our groups and events. We need frozen casseroles to feed our very hungry clients and start their days off with proper nourishment.

Sandwiches for clients

Volunteers purchase and build them, and we use them on our outreaches and during our groups and activities on site. Trauma-informed care suggests that food should always be accessible, so we try hard to provide it consistently.

Camping food bags

Provide 12 bags filled with easy-open, non-perishable food items. We'll give you the full list, but it's things you can obtain through a local grocery store. Clients can pick these up every three days from us.

Portable solar chargers

Because many of our clients are street-dependent, options for them to charge their devices are limited. The solar portable chargers are convenient because they are solar powered but small and don’t take up much space in their bags.

Reusable plastic bags

We use these for our various food bags that we distribute to clients. These include camping bags that contain easy-to-handle foods suitable for those living on the streets, and outreach bags that are given to those we meet at various sites in Austin and in San Marcos.

Men’s pants — all sizes!

We are especially in need of pants in small and medium sizes. We stock both long and short pants. The demand is sufficiently large that we find these are among the items that are most difficult to keep in stock in our Sunshine Store.

   This month clients continued to make progress. Better self-care is the most hotly discussed and desired goal. Employment is the second-best item. We had a lot of clients involved in receiving and needing medical care this month.
   Housing seems to be much more difficult to attain this month, for a variety of reasons. We have no issues with supported housing and transitional housing, but we believe most of our clients deserve and -- with time and continued growth – can qualify for and afford market housing.
   That is not to say we have significant affordability issues in Austin, but rather to say these are very young and flexible people with high potential once they heal and grow. We're proud of them all.
   We also pay a lot of attention to the "tail" of our goal charts -- those individual items like wanting more education, recognizing the value of faith and community, and reengaging with traditional systems like banking.

   Here are the latest goals our clients, prayer warriors and team, working together, have accomplished:

Stability:

• Found new jobs -- Azul, Kimberly, Bre, David, Jay and Wren. 
• Maintained jobs -- Crista, Dani, Isaiah and Noah.
• Maintained housing -- Brianna, Cotten, Crista, Jaysin, Noah and Wren.
• Obtained benefits -- Richard.
• Reconciled with family -- Brianna and Kyanda.
• Obtained IDs -- Jay and Richard.
• Attending college -- Kyanda and Vlad.
• Resolved legal issues -- Kyanda and Nathan.
• Practiced better self-care -- Azul, August, Brianna, Bre, Cotten, Crista, Dani, Dario, Elijah, Elina, Isaiah, Jaysin, Noah, Reefer, Vlad and Wren.
• Obtained mental health treatment -- Dani and Wren.
• Obtained medical treatment -- Darius, Isaiah, Vlad and Wren.
• Obtained transportation -- August, Elina, Ellen and Isaiah. 
• Opened a bank account -- Isaiah.

Sobriety:

• Reached milestones -- Kyanda and Vlad.

Reconnecting with God:

• Expressed reverence for God -- Noah.
• Expressed belief in Jesus -- Noah.
• Confessed ongoing sin -- Noah.
• Maintained a Bible self-study -- Noah.

Mon 3-11 -- Three clients inspect what’s available at our Sunshine Store.

Thu 3-14 -- Clients sing, dance, read their own poetry, rap and reveal other surprises at our weekly Talent Night.

Fri 2-16 -- The SYMin outreach team served clients at our San Marcos location.

Fri 3-8 -- Our clients always let their playful sides show during Friday Fun Day.

Sat 2-17 — Thank you to the youth group from Covenant Presbyterian Church that helped us renovate a room in a house on our property and interacted with our clients.

Tue 3-5 -- Clients gathered for Heart to Heart Virtual Peer Support Group. 

  “What a terrific organization!”
 Susan and Dan Bright
 
“Street Youth Ministry blesses
 so many young people
 and their families!
 I am so happy to help out
 this amazing organization!!”
 Lauri Bunch

Financial support:

• Donors make such a difference for our awesome clients because they fund our life-changing guidance counseling.

Donate in-kind:

• Camping food drives are welcome. This includes in-kind donations of non-perishable, easy-open, non-cook food items. Food insecurity remains one of our clients' top issues.

Daytime volunteers:

•  Needed between 11 and 6!
•  This is our number one need to help with outreach, the Sunshine Store, and our fun early evening events.

• Become a homeless advocate wherever you live! We offer a 10-part online video course that challenges you to practice what you learn for a week before taking the next part. We offer support and resources to those who complete the course for their "mentees."

SYMin mascot Rosie gets a St. Patrick's Day hug from a happy client!