Featured Program: Crosswalk Emergency Shelter

It’s that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas when everyone is happy and families are feeling all “Cumbayá,” warm and loving. It’s about six in the evening when this tall, preppy-looking, blonde-haired girl walks in with her head down. She doesn’t look like the rest of the kids at the shelter—all angry and dark and mohawked. She’s the kind of girl you grew up next door to, you know?

She is very upset, but after a few minutes, we piece her story together. She is from California and her mom has kicked her out of the house because she has been cut from her high school basketball team. Mom has sent her to Spokane to live with her dad. The only problem is that mom didn’t even bother to call dad, and dad doesn’t want her. So here it is, just before Christmas, and this man dumps his daughter in front of a shelter in a city where she knows no one. And here I am, missing my family so much, feeling like a homesick kid myself. It’s a time when you should be singing carols with your family—not lost in a strange city with no one who wants you—and all because you didn’t make some sports team. I think to myself, “What kind of messed-up world is this?”

And it isn’t that the new girl’s situation is worse than the other kids—in fact, it’s nothing compared to some of the things I’ve seen so far. But as I watch her cling to the staff (she won’t even go near the other kids or talk to anyone else) I see how afraid she really is. And interestingly, because she doesn’t have the heavy eyeliner or the baggy clothes to hide behind…because she hasn’t learned how to put on a tough exterior or figure out how to protect herself by intimidating or scaring everyone around her…I can see her for who and what she really is.

The Crosswalk staff is able to advocate for this girl. They give her a voice by talking with her mom and helping her to work things out. When things are stable, Crosswalk buys her a bus ticket and sends her back home. But even after this girl is gone, tucked back safely in her California bed, I am unable to forget what I have seen this night; and not only that―my whole perspective of these kids has changed.

Now, I start seeing past the crazy hair and the dirty fingernails. I start seeing the kids for what they are beneath all that—terrified children, alone and scared to death—all of them. I have changed. I now realize I am not just playing pool—I am spending time with scared little kids― not because I have to, but because I want to. Little by little I can see in their eyes and hear in their voices that it matters to them whether or not I am here. Because whether or not they realize it, we have a relationship that matters…a relationship that makes a difference in their lives―and mine.

After four years of volunteering, I have become an employee with Volunteers of America Spokane as director of youth services; so technically, I’ve been hanging out at Crosswalk for 14 years now.

If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that when one of these frightened kids can see that someone cares about them—even a little—it gives them permission to care about themselves and that’s when things really change. That’s when they are able to rebuild their lives.

So yes, we give them a bed and a meal and clean socks; we play pool with them and match them with counselors; we reconcile them with their families or get them into housing; we get them back in school and help them get and stay clean; but the most important work we do in helping these kids is to reach out and rebuild their spirits. That is what empowers them to change their lives.

Whenever I think back on the night that scared, blonde, girl-next-door walked in, I realize she just needed someone to open the door. She also needed the food, bed, clean sweatshirt and the caseworker to advocate for her by talking to her mom. But most of all, what she needed when she walked through that door was the support of people who care. I am so grateful she walked through mine.

Whether you volunteer or pray or donate to teen programs, you are telling kids they matter to someone; and that is the defining moment when they start to matter to themselves. 

— Bridget Canon, Director of Youth Services for Crosswalk