Posts Tagged ‘youth services denver’
Last week, we sent out an email letting our supporters know that we were running extremely low on food and socks. Within a week, our pantry and sock crates were overflowing!
This picture is the food from just one church, Eastern Hills Community Church in Aurora, who donated.
In addition to Eastern Hills, we would also like to thank Englewood Fist Assembly of God, Grace Community Church, Boulder County Community Church, Kevin and Carol Bohren, and all the individuals who gave so generously to help meet our needs to help the homeless and at-risk 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
SOX PLACE is for you..the gutter punk, the train rider, the homeless youth, you who just need something to eat, you who just need a safe place to crash. Whether you’ve been on the street for one day or one decade, SOX PLACE IS FOR YOU!
We are open:
Tuesday-Friday: noon-4pm
Saturday: noon- 2pm
Sox Place is a drop in center for street kids that provides a safe haven for them to call home. But it’s not just a drop in center, it’s a church. Doyle and the supporters of Sox Place are dedicated to changing lives one relationship at a time in the heart of Denver. Surrounded by prostitution, heroine use, and meth addiction Doyle dives into the mess of people’s lives and loves them where they are at.
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.
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!
Benten’s hope for those he encounters is that they will see themselves as God sees them – truly loved and deeply valued..
- What are your five favorite songs of all time? - Sigh no More by Mumford and Sons, Son of the Morning by Oh, Sleeper, Nothing Better by the Postal Service, Amazing Grace, Leap by The Cave Singers.
- What is a book you recently read and a quote or lesson learned from it? – Radical by David Platt. Platt explains that the life Jesus calls us to is not meant to be comfortable or easy in any way. We are not meant to chase after the “American Dream” or seek worldly things. He asks us to sacrifice everything, even to the point of death, in order to follow Him.”
- Who is your favorite fictional character?- Batman
- What chore do you absolutely hate doing?- Pulling weeds
- What is your favorite summertime treat?- Ice cream
The following was written by our friend Mud, who recently died in a tragic car accident.
We put it here as he wrote it.
What sick puppets we are…what a fucked up and disgusting stage we dance upon…born with innocents but no longer in controll of our own strings. Forced to march to the commands of the nobel authority, while the machine of social disctruction blinds our socity, handicapts our freemdom, and eats it’s way in to our souls like a vicious plague leaving us with nothing but the spoiled core.
- Random Thoughts by Mud
Why is it so many people I know die and I have no feeling or reaction. I feel numb, as if nothing happened. Will people feel this way if I were to die? Better yet would I feel this way if my son or wife died? I feel like crying but I stop myself. I’m feeling fear as if everyone in the room had suddenly focused their attention on me. Who knows what they are thinking. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I even feel guilty for what the feelings I am feeling. Is this normal? Or should I have taken Josh’s place. May my friend, my brother, my Josh rest in peace. I love you.
- Written in 2002 after Mosh Josh died
Site Search
Walk, Run, Bike, Board, Bus, or Drive to:
We are open:
Tuesday-Friday: noon-4pm
Saturday: noon- 2pm
