It's what Christmas means to me my love.

Homeless Youth Recourse Center

For Christmas this year Beau's family suggested that instead of exchanging gifts between siblings and parents, we would put that money towards something a little more altruistic.

Dana (Beau's mom) suggested we donate to the Salt Lake chapter for homeless youth which sounded like a very worthy cause. Until recently the Utah law is that no homeless minor's are allowed to house overnight anywhere or it could be considered kidnapping. Which means the shelter closes each day at 5:00, forcing hundreds of teenagers to sleep, who knows where, in the freezing cold and snow. So Dana bought and organized a veritable mountain of sleeping bags and warm fuzzy blankets as well as fast food and movie theater gift cards in hopes of getting them out of the cold if only for a few hours. 

As a chapter manager told us, the laws have recently changed. Thank goodness. Teenagers can now house overnight, however the facility doesn't have the necessary space to facilitate  overnight stay but is saving up to hopefully buy a property in a couple years.

So yesterday we went down there to make our donation and found out they had been robbed of all of their Christmas donated gift cards. Over 150 cards. They were so incredibly thankful for the donations. We just kept thanking each other. 

"thank you for the sleeping bags!" 

"no, thank you for helping our cities homeless!"

It was a wonderful feeling and 10 times better than any material item we could ever receive.

As we left during closing time we saw a few girls who couldn't be any older than 16 leaving with strollers and with what must have been very bundled up babies inside.
If you would like to donate or just pass the word around please go to: 
http://www.voaut.org/Services/Homeless-Outreach--Housing-Programs/Homeless-Youth-Resource-Center


Even my 4 year old had fun helping!