At the risk of speaking too personally, there is a young man currently in the EMP program who is at risk of falling into this category. He knows who he is. He also knows that it’s time to fish or cut bait, as they would say in my home state. For his sake, and for ours, I hope to be congratulating him on his graduation a year from now.

If you want to help OHFF continue our work with this student and others, please go to our Donate and Get Involved pages today.

In June of last year, The New York City Council approved legislation to “extend the maximum length of stay at emergency shelter residential programs for victims of domestic violence to not less than 180 days”. That is a huge increase over the previous standard of 90 days, which was the state mandate. And I appreciate the shelters as the emergency option!

Safe, affordable housing is the most immediate challenge for families fleeing a domestic violence situation. It is second only to making it out safe in the first place. If the family has no viable housing option upon maxing out of their time in the shelter, many times they can end up right back with the abuser.

OHFF is not a domestic violence shelter. We offer a longer-term solution. If you’d like to help our families solve one of their earliest critical dilemmas, please go to our Donate and Get Involved pages today.

It’s easy to forget how powerful a “thank you” can be, both when genuinely delivered AND when genuinely accepted with an equally heartfelt “you’re welcome”.

My thanks to all those who recently reminded me of the power of both sides of the equation.

This week, I was reminded that sometimes the best way to help someone else really is to let them help you. (Hey, I know it’s a back door approach, but at least I’m gettin’ there!)

In the mad crunch that is our daily existence, it’s easy to forget how incredibly satisfying it can be to step out of yourself and help another. Give that gift of satisfaction to someone else today.

This obviously bright and determined student was going to complete a 2-year program in hopes of supporting herself when she aged out of the foster care system. Now, she is able to pursue the 4-year degree that she really wanted and is certainly capable of achieving. And now she is doing it with the technological, financial and personal support she didn’t have before.

If you want to help deserving students like Shushanna “be all they can be”, please go to our Donate and Get Involved pages today.

For example, IssueLab provided a 2011 fact sheet developed by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Their fact sheet then lead me to a 2011 report on the State of Homelessness in America conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. (I can HEAR you snoring. Stay with me, I’m gettin’ to the point…)

In the latter study, they “estimate that the odds of experiencing homelessness after emancipation from foster care in the course of a year are 1 in 6.” Just another statistic. What’s the big deal, you ask?

The big deal is that the same study shows that “the odds of experiencing homelessness within a given year for people at or below the federal poverty line are estimated to be 1 in 25.” Think about it.

What these students face when they age out of “the system” is one of the many reasons OHFF developed the Educational Mentoring Program. If you want to help us help them, please go to Donate and Get Involved today.

I hope IssueLab yields some good info for you, too. Hey, we’re all in this thing together.

The mothers and children in our Domestic Violence Initiative are coming from an environment where their proactivity has been completely stifled. Self-rescue is all about being proactive.

The students in our Educational Mentoring Program are coming from the world of foster care, where they have come to depend on “the system”. That doesn’t foster proactivity either.

To understand how the Schulmans came to address these issues in such a unique way through OHFF, take a look at the Founders’ Story in the About Us section of this website. And if you want to help our participants on their path to self-rescue, go to the Donate and Get Involved sections today.

Having read a little further, it seems to me that this early American introduction of empowerment was born of a belief that education is critical to ensuring a well-functioning society. And they chose to make it one of the very first principles they addressed formally in starting a new community. How cool is that?!?

Why did I choose this word for a blog posting? Because it is also represents a crucial element in the success of our program participants. You can read about it in the Programs section of this website.

And if you want to help “empower” our mothers and students, go to the Get Involved and Donate sections today. You might just end up feeling a little more empowered yourself.

It says that “Repeatedly receiving unwanted telephone calls, voice or text messages was the most commonly experienced stalking tactic for both female and male victims of stalking (78% for women and 75.9% for men)” in this particular study. Think about the impact of that in the workplace alone, much less all the other ramifications.

Unfortunately, some of our Domestic Violence Initiative participants can speak to this firsthand. If you want to help them and their children move forward with their lives, please go to the Get Involved and Donate sections of this website now.

Photo: Charlene with Rebecca, her EMP mentor, and Collin, Rebecca’s husband.

Charlene, one of our Educational Mentoring Program students, just completed her two-year program at Delhi and is on her way. LOOK at her. Clearly, Charlene, you got this…

Now look at her mentor, Rebecca. I don’t know which of them is beaming more with pride.

If you want to help our students reach their goals, go to our Get Involved and Donate pages today.