Showing Youths Someone Cares

In his 21 years, Trayvon Chapman said, he never had a Christmas dinner like this, one spent with so many friends, one where the food was so lovingly prepared, one where he was so happy.

That’s because, as a result of his mother’s drug addiction, he had spent 11 years bouncing from one foster home to the next, never getting a chance to feel connected to anyone or anything. And when he turned 18, the inevitable news came. “You’re emancipated. You’re on your own,” he recalls his social worker telling him.

He may be on his own now, but on Wednesday, Chapman did not have to spend the holiday season alone. He and about 200 young people who have recently been emancipated from foster care turned out for a special Christmas dinner and gift-giving ceremony in Culver City hosted by the Alumni Resource Center.

The center, supported by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, offers such emancipated young people job training, computer classes, financial assistance, clothing stipends and other services. It organized the event as an additional effort to show its clients that they are not forgotten just because they are 18 and older and no longer eligible for foster care.

“This was a chance to do something special for the youth we serve,” said Michael Verner, social worker at the center. “It lets them know we’re not just here at Christmas, but we’re here all year long.”

Chapman agreed. A former security guard who lives in transitional housing provided in Whittier for emancipated young people, he is unemployed but optimistic about finding work. “It makes me feel good, like they care,” he said of the party. “It’s a gift to me. I accept it as a Christmas gift, as a blessing from God.”

The auditorium of the Veterans Memorial Building brimmed with the holiday spirit as the group laughed, danced and shared common stories. Volunteers staffed tables at which the guests could pick up such holiday gifts as winter jackets, sweaters, hats, shoes and personal accessories--all donated by private and corporate sponsors. The turkey and ham dinner was provided by Frank O’Day, director of the catering division of Restaurant Associates at the Los Angeles Music Center, and by Trade Tech Culinary School, which enlisted its students to prepare the meal.

The gesture was not lost on Jennifer Lambright. “This meant so much to me,” said the 20-year-old, her voice choked with emotion, her eyes filled with tears. “These people are like my second family.”

Six years ago, at the age of 14, Lambright weighed 86 pounds and was addicted to crack cocaine amid an unhappy home life. Police, she said, would show up at her house “every other week” after her father’s anger would explode. She says she had to separate from her family because “I couldn’t take it.” She ended up in foster care.

Today, Lambright has much to smile about. She beat her cocaine addiction and in February will celebrate five years of sobriety. She is the first person in her family to graduate from high school in the last 20 years. And she helps the Culver City police by sharing her story with at-risk teenagers in an anti-gang program. “The people at ARC didn’t look down on me. They told me I had a future,” she said.

Social worker Verner said many youths in foster care are left on their own after age 18 with no one else to help them navigate the world.

“Their self-esteem is not always well-developed,” said Verner, who’s been with the center for three years. “And they often lack the skills to do such things as filling out job applications, registering their car at the DMV . . . things we take for granted.”

Fellow social worker Victor Phelps says events such as Wednesday’s party aid in the battle against depression, a common problem that confronts many foster youth: “Just . . . us being available to talk to them helps. It takes a long time to get them to trust anyone who’s an adult.”

Nineteen-year-old Spirit Wallace, who has received help from Phelps, is thankful for the resource center.

“It warms our hearts because they still think of us after we’re 18,” she said.

She said she has five younger sisters who live with her former foster mother, who provides wonderful care. And for that, Wallace is also thankful.

Thirteen years ago, she and her 12 siblings were separated from their parents and placed in foster care. Their mother would often neglect them as she searched for her next drug high. And Wallace’s father, she said, beat her.

But the worst incident came in 1987, when her mother’s boyfriend drowned her 2-year-old sister in the bathtub. The anger she carried almost consumed her. But through counseling, faith and her love of music, Wallace says, she has been able to heal. She has been through many “trials,” as she calls them, including a recent battle against cervical cancer for which she had surgery in October. She looks forward to resuming college soon, when she transfers from Clark Atlanta University in Georgia to Cal State Fullerton, and she has even forgiven her biological mother and father.

Trayvon Chapman looks forward to having his own family someday. This holiday dinner was a bit new for him, but he hopes to one day have a wife and two children--a boy and a girl--to share Christmas with. “I never really had this tradition,” he said.