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Horizons Newsletter
Daybreak publishes its Horizons newsletter twice a year. You may read featured articles below or download PDFs of recent newsletters.
If someone asked you “What does Daybreak do?” how would you answer? You might reply that Daybreak is the community’s only emergency shelter for runaway and homeless teens. Of course, you’d be correct. After all, that’s how we began almost 37 years ago. And our shelter is still operating and helping runaway and homeless teens, 24 hours a day.
However, over the years, the faces of runaway and homeless youth in our community have changed. They’ve grown older. Today, we still see young teens, but most youth coming to Daybreak for help are 17, 18, 19 or even 20 years old. They’re unable to return home. They’re too old for adoption and too young and inexperienced to live on their own. They really have no place to go.
Last summer, two years after moving into our new building and putting our former shelter up for sale, we still didn’t have a viable offer. And there wasn’t one in sight. In the meantime, people from various child welfare systems often asked whether Daybreak could accommodate more kids.
That got us wondering…Could we turn our liability of owning vacant buildings into a community asset? Could we reuse our former shelter to benefit more troubled youth? After careful study, we decided to renovate our Wayne Avenue property and turn it into a 10-bedroom group home for 14- to 19-year-old boys in foster care. Why boys instead of girls? In our community more boys than girls need foster care, plus boys are harder to place with foster families.
On November 4, 2010 Alexis, a young woman in Daybreak’s housing program, bravely shared her childhood story of abandonment and longtime abuse with over 425 guests at our Champions for Youth fundraiser.
Kicked out of the house when she turned 18, Alexis finally found the home she’d always wished for when she arrived at Daybreak. With help from her Daybreak family, Alexis moved into our Beachler Apartments, finished high school, and pursued her dream of going to college. Most importantly, she says, she learned how to overcome her anger and have a positive outlook on life.
Daybreak’s Coffee House continues to give our young clients opportunities to express themselves. Starting in January, poetry was a focus at Coffee House gatherings, with the goal of hosting a poetry competition—commonly known as a poetry slam—at the end of March.
James' mother brought him to Dayton for a "vacation" with his father. When 17-year-old James asked when she'd be back to rescue him from his father's condemned house, she said she wasn't coming back. A devastated James was sure he'd never see his mother again. He eventually left his father and turned to Daybreak for help.