Posts Tagged ‘homeless youth drop-in center’
The type of kids walking through the door at Sox Place is constantly evolving and changing. Often we see many of the same kids month after month, but there are always a few new faces in the crowd. One of our favorite parts of this job is getting the opportunity to look into the lives of these people and the subcultures that they belong to.
A couple of weeks ago, our great friends from Sk8 Church (a ministry from Steamboat Springs, CO) came and helped us out for the day. They helped us out and built a quarter pipe skate ramp in our basement, which was a great addition to the few “skating features” we already had. Now we have a mini-skate park at Sox Place, a feature that allows us to reach an entirely new group of teens.
As a staff, we are always looking for more creative ways to reach out to kids that might not normally come to Sox Place. Growing this new skate ministry is something that all of us are extremely passionate about. Since we added our basement skate park, we have had at least a dozen new kids come to Sox Place, mainly to skate. This addition has given us a tremendous opportunity to reach new kids. When it snows here in Denver, which happens quite a bit these days, we have the ability to bring in even more of the skateboard subgroup because they can’t go to the Denver skate park.
We would love to build up this new ministry outreach. We would love to add more rails and ramps and be able to have even more extra skateboards on hand to let the kids borrow. If you have any access to these types of resources, please consider donating to Sox Place. The more kids we have the ability to reach, the more people we can mentor and reach out to and share the love of Christ with.
-Sam
It is rare that homeless kids get brand new clothes to wear, but thanks to Shane and Patty Rose of Utah, they will! Take a look at all these new clothes for the homeless youth of Denver!
When I first got involved with Sox Place almost 10 years ago, our kids were primarily of one sub-culture, the gutter punk. They were anti-government, anti- law, anti-cop, anti-authority, and anti-pretty much everything that got in their way of drinking, fighting, and having “fun.” We still have some of those kids, but now, the kids that come to Sox Place are so diverse that we see many different attitudes and mindsets. They are from different backgrounds and ethnicity.
One major change that I have seen that is positive is that our kids don’t really consider it cool to be living on the streets anymore. In previous years, you got most of your streets status by how long you had been homeless. Now many of our kids want desperately to break the cycle of homelessness, joblessness, and the street lifestyle they are living.
This can be quite a daunting task for many of our youth. So many of them have never been taught the basic life skills that you and I can take for granted. No one was around to teach them how to get up and be on time, how to accept direction and correction from authority, how to look presentable for a job interview, and how to manage the little money they get. Even basic personal hygiene that we were taught as children is foreign to them. It’s easy to write many of these things off as common sense, but when the example your parents give you is violence, welfare abuse, food stamps, taking advantage of the government disability program, and drug and alcohol abuse, common sense becomes not so common for them.
Many of our kids are realizing this is no way to live, and that is very encouraging for me. Therefore, we are adapting our services to include the “Streets2Stability” program. This program is where we teach these basic lessons through a three month internship. We are also helping in the job hunting process, giving bus fare and clothes that are appropriate for interviews.
One of the critical ways you can help these kids who are trying very hard to get off the streets is to let us know if you have any job leads; that would be invaluable. No matter what kind of work it is, we can try and fit one of our youths for the job. We also have a 5280 program where you can commit to donating $52.80 a month to help pay for more “Streets2Stability” participants and other services. Sometimes it only takes one person willing to take a risk for these kids for them to rise to the occasion, and break the cycle.
These are exciting times here at Sox Place and hold a lot of hope for our kids, as it is now they who want to make a change, not everyone around them wanting to change them.
-Jordan
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far it is possible to go.” — T.S. Eliot
For all of us, it is often easy in life not to take risks. Easier to stand by and watch than to put our necks on the line in an attempt to change a certain situation. Or maybe some of us are great “dreamers” but we have a hard time, when it comes time, to step up and follow through with our dreams because of fear. No matter how great or miniscule, we deal with risk, everyday all of the time. There are statistics that can be looked at to evaluate the amount of risk involved in any given situation to either encourage people or deter people from doing things.
Sox Place is an environment all about taking risks. The only reason Sox Place even exists today is because of some very monumental risk taking. If Doyle had not taken a HUGE risk, over a decade ago now, and moved his family and entire life to Denver, Sox Place would not be here. If the people who continuously donate their time, money, and prayer, Sox Place would not survive the way it does today. If our staff members did not step out and decide that they would rather work with the kids at Sox Place, doing this ministry, rather than any number of career choices, Sox Place would not be what it is today.
People will often tell you that working with the type of kids that come to Sox Place is a risk that is just not worth taking. People will say that the risk is so much greater than the reward. However, isn’t this what is so amazing about Jesus and his ministry? Whether it is the story of the woman at the well or Jesus choosing to use fishermen as the men who will forever change history through his ministry, he leads a great example of what it means for us to be risk takers.
Lately, this is an issue that God has been laying on my heart in a huge way. One thing we always say at Sox Place is “We need to give them the best we’ve got.” We may not always have the best food for the kids or the sweetest new clothes but we always give them the best we have. It is so important for our ministry that this is also the case in all of our interactions with our kids, because they are worth the risk. God doesn’t call us to be complacent or to just try to meet the needs of the kids that walk through our door. God calls us to daily take risks and put our necks on the line for the people we serve.
As Jesus showed us how to be risk takers through his ministry, so can we show our kids how to be risk takers through ours.
- Sam
The New Year has already come with challenges. We lost one of our “kids” a few weeks ago and participated in his funeral two days ago. As always, when one of them dies they all go into a period of self-destruct in some fashion or another. For most it’s drugs and liquor, some it’s violence, others pulling away from the relationships with people who love them, and some it’s all the above. As a staff, and as many of them our friends, we try to be there for them any way we can through this process.
Last night I drove across town to bring supplies to several of our kids including the wife and best friend of Chuck, the guy who died. They had managed to find an apartment to stay in for a couple of days. One of them that I am particularly close with called me yesterday and asked if I could bring him clothes, some groceries, dog food, and other stuff so they could stay in the apartment. I understood and was happy to do so, knowing that this will give him and the others time away from the drama of the streets and more time to grieve. As I drove home, I thought about how difficult it must be to deal with these hard times in life, like death of a loved one, when you don’t even know where your next meal is coming from or how your going to stay warm so you can sleep out in a snow storm.
As I began to pray for them, I started to think about all the kids I have seen die over the last nine years I have been involved at Sox Place. So many good people have lost their lives to these streets. I pray that Sox Place can remain a cornerstone in these kids’ lives, that we can be here not only to provide a meal, clothes and other physical needs, but to also be a friend that can talk with them and influence them in a positive way. To show them there is more out there than hardship, that they can have peace and grace and love. Let us be examples of that.
- Jordan
As I stood on the tile beside the door, getting my mind ready for the blast of cold and snow that I was about to encounter, I looked down at my boots. My ugly boots. My old, dirty, ugly boots. I’d had them since high school – about ten years now. Ten years is a long time to have a pair of shoes when you’re only 26 and female. They were a sort-of faded black – I couldn’t remember if they had always been that color or if they had faded over time – with dirt on the top of one of them that I couldn’t seem to get off. They were size almost-too-big. Clunky was a good description for them; I sounded like a 300 pound drunk man when I walked across the floor. And they were plain. Completely plain, except for the drawstring around the top to keep the snow from getting inside. They were my old, dirty, ugly boots.
Trekking across the yet-to-be-plowed parking lot toward my bus stop, through snow drifts up to my ankles, I was almost thankful for those ugly boots. But just almost. When I sat down on the bus, my feet were dry and warm, which is important to a cold-natured person such as myself. But they were still my ugly boots. I couldn’t help but frown down at them, no matter how subconsciously thankful I was for unfrozen toes.
With my feet under my desk at work, I didn’t have to think about my unsightly boots too much. I went to work, getting done what I had planned to finish that day in no time. This made it so I could help out in the drop-in center for most of the day, hanging out with the street youth that come into Sox Place. Between getting warm socks for the kids and cleaning up coffee spills – cold, numb hands don’t attach well to warm cups of coffee – it was easy to ignore the sound of big-foot coming from my own boots.
Not long after we opened, a girl came in almost unnoticed among the extra-large crowd that Sox Place attracts on snowy days. But she stood out a little more than the others – at least to me. The coat she had on looked warm enough, but it was obviously too small. Small tufts of blonde hair poked out of her too-tight hood just enough to see that neither a comb nor shampoo had touched it in weeks. Her nose was running and her face was red. Her lips looked as if she were to try to smile, they would start bleeding in about ten places. She had her sleeping bag draped over most of her body so as to keep the flying snow away as she walked. The legs of her jeans were wet half-way up to her knees from being dragged through slush. And her non-waterproof boots looked as if someone had soaked them in a bathtub of ice water overnight before giving them to her to wear.
She came up to me and asked, barely audible, “Can I go downstairs to get shoes and some dry clothes?”
“Absolutely,” I responded, as I led her to the donation room. I pointed to the piles of shoes and coats while she removed the load from her back.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “I got here as fast as I could. My feet are so cold. I tried to run, but I couldn’t feel my feet. I almost fell.” She looked down at her sloshy boots and took a step. “Oh! They hurt so bad!” She walked closer to the shoes. “Oh, they hurt!”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Frostbite was the first thing that came to my mind, but I didn’t want to tell her that. Surly she didn’t have frostbite. “Maybe you should take off your wet socks and shoes, and I’ll go get you some dry socks.”
She began to take off her shoes, and I went upstairs to grab some thick socks. When I came back, she had picked out some boots in her size (good thing she had small feet – they were the last pair of boots we had) and was headed toward the pile of coats, cursing her feet as she went.
I handed her the socks, and she sat down with a curse, “They hurt so bad! Why would they hurt so much?”
I looked at her bare feet as she rubbed them between her hands before putting on the socks. They were wrinkled, as if she had been in the shower too long. And red. So red it looked like she was overheated, but I knew it was just the opposite. “I don’t know,” I answered. “Maybe it’s like after you’ve been playing in the snow, then you come inside and wash your hands in warm water, and it hurts a lot because your fingers got so cold.”
She didn’t respond to my answer. I’m not sure if she thought it was as dumb as I thought it had sounded or if she was thinking about it. Either way, she finished her business and put on her new-found, fitting coat and warm, waterproof boots.
As I watched her toss her old, soaked boots to the side, I couldn’t help but look down at my own feet. Maybe it was the lighting in that basement or the fact that I was standing on a crumbling concrete floor, but for some reason, my boots didn’t look quite so ugly anymore.
By Kara Knight
Imagine being 16, 17, or 18 and living on the streets. CNN catches up with some of Denver’s homeless youth to find out what it’s like. It is a story of survival and hope. Most of them have found a home through Sox Place. Even though they face more struggles than most, they have not let their dreams die.
Thousands of fans stream toward Coors Field for a Colorado Rockies baseball game on this Saturday night in downtown Denver. I make my way through the crowd to the corner of 16th Street Mall (a mile-long pedestrian walkway with shops and cafés) and Arapahoe Street, four blocks from Coors Field, where most visitors would love to spend an evening enjoying Italian cuisine or sipping coffee.
Less than 50 yards away are nearly 50 street kids who hang out here. Some on skateboards attempt tricks on various steps, handrails and curbs. Nearly all of the youth know each other, but pockets of closer friendships exist within the group.
They all know Doyle Robinson, an Assemblies of God U.S. missionary, and seem to have let him into their world. Several youth give Robinson a hug as we arrive downtown. Nearly five years ago, Robinson began ministering to these Denver teens and college-age adults by giving out socks, drinks or whatever snacks he had from his minivan.
From the darkness of his troubled adolescence in Arkansas, Doyle Robinson found the light: He would draw upon his own pain to help troubled teens. From his early days handing out tube socks to homeless kids on the 16th Street Mall, Robinson’s vision has grown to include Sox Place, a converted downtown auto shop that’s now Denver’s only daytime drop-in youth center, where kids can find a warm bowl of soup, a quiet place to crash, easy camaraderie and the occasional punk concert. And if they’re seeking spiritual guidance, Robinson — an ordained minister with the Assembly of God — can offer that, too. But he prefers action to words, showing the power of faith rather than preaching it.
Doyle believes in making a difference where you are, to those God brings into your path. He feels that to do nothing for those around him, with all that God has given him, is to fail miserably in life. Doyle would like people to say at his funeral: “Doyle added value to people around him.”
- What are your five favorite songs of all time? – “Long Cool Woman,” “Carry On Wayward Son,” “It Is Well With My Soul,” “Amazing Grace,” “The Messiah Will Come Again”
- What is a book you recently read and a quote or lesson learned from it? -Success Kills by Wayde Goodall, “The preoccupation of the day and our choice not to hear those around us can cause us to miss some very special people – and opportunities.”
- Who is your favorite fictional character?- Foghorn Leghorn
- What chore do you absolutely hate doing?- Filing
- What is your favorite summertime treat?- Sugar Free Popsicle
- What are your five favorite songs of all time? – “Wagon Wheel,” “Wayward Son,” “Amazing Grace,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” “O.M.G. (Jesus Wept)”
- What is a book you recently read and a quote or lesson learned from it? – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway: “Now is the time to think of only one thing. That which I was born for.”
- Who is your favorite fictional character?- The Punisher
- What chore do you absolutely hate doing?- Laundry
- What is your favorite summertime treat?- Route 66 Cherry Limeade
- What are your five favorite songs of all time? – “Much too young”- Garth Brooks, “Folsom Prison Blues”- Johnny Cash, “When the stars go blue”- Ryan Adams, “Thick and Thin”- Seventh Star, “The funeral”- Band of Horses
- What is a book you recently read and a quote or lesson learned from it? – Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle. Everyone deserves a second chance no matter what they’ve done or what they’ve been through.
- Who is your favorite fictional character?- Tom Sawyer
- What chore do you absolutely hate doing?- Cleaning my Garage
- What is your favorite summertime treat?- Otter Pops
To Kara, being truly Christ-like means to demonstrate love and compassion to everyone, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or what their plans are. She hopes she is able to convey a Christ-like love at Sox Place both behind the scenes and face-to-face with the kids.
- What are your five favorite songs of all time? – “In Christ Alone” (Townend/Getty version), “When I Fall in Love” by Nat King Cole, “When the Last Tear Falls” by Andrew Peterson, “Hands and Feet” by Audio Adrenaline, “Loose Change” by Andrew Peterson.
- What is a book you recently read and a quote or lesson learned from it? – Through a Screen Darkly by Jeffrey Overstreet: [Speaking of Jesus] “And He did not set conditions for the needy, saying that He would walk away if they spoke profanity, behaved inappropriately or had the wrong sexual orientation. No, as a good shepherd, He went out to find them and loved the sick, the weak, the appalling, the offensive, the reckless, the foul-mouthed, the addicted.”
- Who is your favorite fictional character?- Neville Longbottom
- What chore do you absolutely hate doing?- Dishes
- What is your favorite summertime treat?- Ice cold watermelon!
You’re the one who let people believe in others again.
You’re the one that helped people realize that not everyone wants to screw us.
You’re the one that encourages us to believe in ourselves again.
You’re the one that wants to show us there is still some good out in the world.
You’re the one that wants us to realize that we can do whatever we want.
You’re the one that wants us to shine in a world full of darkness.
You’re the one that wants us to believe that there are people who don’t feel we should starve just because this is the only way of life we know.
You’re the one that provides us with a shoulder to cry on, a confidant, a friend, and the truth we need.
You’re the one that wants us to believe in God again and remember He’s there for us.
So you’re the one that deserves a very big hug!
Thank you!
- Written by street kids to thank Sox Place
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