 Hi, welcome back to In The Studio. My name is Rachel Simons, and I'll be your host today. Today we'll be discussing Make It Happen for Yolo County. I am here today with the board president and a youth representative. Hi, welcome, Jan, and welcome, Vance. Thank you. So what is Make It Happen for Yolo County, and how did this get started? Yeah, absolutely. So we're an all-volunteer nonprofit that accepts donations and cash, I guess. Monetary. Monetary donations. Monetary donations, yeah. I missed that one up. It's OK. Yeah. We work to serve former and current foster youth called Transitional Age Youth, or TAY, T-A-Y. Youth that are moving into independent living situations from backgrounds such as group homes, foster families. So current services may help them with rent. They may help them with sometimes some food, but nobody provides household furnishings and supplies. So we have stepped in to try to assist with that because it's a pretty big monetary cost. And we got started in 2014, when we officially became a nonprofit 501C3. And we have been working since that time and expanding every year. We've been able to increase, because of the generous donations for Yolo County, the number of youth that we serve. So you're saying these people going through this transitional age, around what ages are these young adults that you guys usually help? Typically, ages 18 to 24. And would you say this is more like a fragile time period for these people at this time? Or like where they are looking for this kind of help with furniture and more of those type of things? I think many youth that are moving out in that situation, if you don't mind my using myself as an example, I've been pretty fortunate in my life. And I know that my kids, when they were able to move out, I was able to help them out from a financial standpoint, as well as letting them take some of the things in our house or if they needed things, we were able to help out with that if they couldn't provide for themselves. And a lot of youth, I think, in the foster care system do not have that kind of support, either from family, friends, or financially. So again, they don't get that through the state and county. And that's just something that isn't really addressed. So when we recognized that as a need, then we decided that we wanted to see if we could help out with that. And there is no other organization in Yolo County providing those services that we're aware of. Oh, wow. So when you guys are you getting referrals or speaking to other agencies to get these people or people coming to you with these people that you're helping, do you want to address that one? Yeah, so we often have a few county workers that we are associated with. And we have county organizations that we're working with as partners. So like CASA Youth sometimes mainly just referrals from social workers, though. There is a unit building on what Vance said. There's a transitional age youth unit with the Yolo County Department of Health and Human Services. So we do VET. So we sort of make sure that it's an appropriate referral. And as Vance said, we get referrals from the social workers from the TAE unit. We have had workers referrals from the Yolo County parole officers for age appropriate youth, CASA. As Vance mentioned, we also work with the UC Davis Guardian Scholars Program. And we'll sometimes get some outside referrals, again, that we vet from the similar populations, too. But we do ask that the youth be involved in Yolo County social services. Yeah, that's good. So it's really helping the community here, since we're trying to do that. Yeah, we're a very advanced mentor. We're all volunteering pretty small, so we just don't have the capability to expand beyond that at this point. Specifically, why did both of you find, like, why did you both want to get involved? Did you feel like you had a personal connection to wanting to help foster your system or share a bit of your personal story, Vance? Yeah, so I actually grew up a foster kid, former foster youth myself. And it was a bit of a difficult transition in the beginning, coming straight out of high school to UC Davis on my own. But I did have support, and that's what actually got me through it. It's the support of others that helped me persevere and continue. So that's why now I just look to give back and help others that were or may be in the position I was. So yeah, I started because Jan, she actually just brought me on after we had been working together in another organization, another nonprofit. Wow, that's great. About what are you guys specifically collecting in terms of what type of furniture, what is needed, what do you find most popular to be? That is an item that people need. We need small dressers, Rachel. Small. Small. So thank you for asking that. So most of our youth are moving into small, either rooms or apartments. So we are trying to purchase appliances and kitchen supplies new now that we've been able to increase our funding. Again, thank you to the New York County community. They've been incredibly supportive. We do are in need of small dressers. We take night tables. We are looking for things like small bookshelves and coffee tables and small kitchen tables, maybe seating four chairs. But we ask, we sort of have a little unofficial mantra that if you wouldn't give it to your children or youth, we don't want to give it to ours. So we don't have the capability to repair anything. So we ask that it be gently used and in good condition so that we can turn it over right away and distribute it. So but the key word is small. We can't, we take small sofas or love seats. We can't take sofa beds because literally we physically move them and they're just really heavy those beds. So but things like small love seats, two or three seats, small sofas and couches are great and very much appreciated by the youth. And I was seeing that you guys also accept gift cards or? We find that the youth appreciate gift cards mainly to Walmart and Target and on our website we have a list of everything that we do. The way that it works is we have what we call a wish list. Please kick in if I'm missing something in your hands. That all the social workers and people who work with us to provide referrals to complete with their youth. And then if we can, we have the youth come out to our storage units. We have four here in Davis and they can also pick out additional things that they might need. For example, we just last weekend had a youth that came out that had only requested a bed frame and mattress and box springs but then realized that they didn't have sheets, comforters, pillows, pillowcases, also took lamps, a nightstand. So was able to find a lot more that they could use and that's kind of been the norm. So when we can, we try to get them out. We also deliver to them if they are unable to do that. So they physically can visit these storage units. We prefer that they do actually because usually they find other things that they might need. And it's really helpful when they are there because oftentimes when you're given a list or an opportunity to receive things in a position such as foster youth, you don't wanna ask for too much. So being there and seeing the things kind of makes it easier because it kind of takes some of that pressure off because you see that it's here for you and there is more of it. So rather than just seeing the list and saying like, I need this and things. So yeah, it's really helpful. That is a great opportunity. So it's like hands on and definitely could meet the people that are donating which I feel like is an important part. Like seeing that, oh, there's people, there are support system. Do you find that you ever contact the people that you guys are helping after or for updates or anything? We actually have developed a little bit of a unofficial mentor relationship with a couple of the youth and we have had several of them contact us when they no longer needed and asked if we wanted it back. Which is, yeah, it's really rewarding and youth are extremely appreciative. I've never felt in the five years that we've been doing this and never felt taken advantage of. Often there's word of mouth. We are asking that they pay it forward and we do ask recently just to help us if they don't mind sharing a story or providing a before and after picture that we can post on our Facebook page or on our website. Just how we helped them because people wanna know the stories. And they wanna know how they're helping and I know when I donate, I wanna know where my money is going. So I hope that people will understand that it's pretty much going as directly as possible to the youth. To the youth, definitely. There's even times where we've had several youth offer to help out in our endeavors and just offer a helping hand. So. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, it's been great. Yeah. About how many youth are, do you think you take on per year about doing this? In 2014, we started when we were first starting out, we served 12. Last year we served 36. Oh, wow. And it doesn't sound like a huge amount but it's a relatively small population overall. Then we plan on continuing to expand not only the number of youth served but the referring agencies. So this is the first year, for example, that we've had referrals from the parole officers and we continue to keep the relationship with the previous referring agencies and tend to grow those as well. And keep expanding that number. Exactly. Yeah. The need is there. Where can people drop off these items or do any things? We ask, do you mind if I take this one? So we ask if they can go to our website www.mihyolo.org. There is information, access there that they can ask. We ask that people provide pictures of their offerings, donations, so that we can just vet that and make sure that it's something that we need. And then we have a volunteer that is great who is helping us communicate with that. So the best way is just to go to our website. That way they can receive all the information. Yes. That's amazing. I really appreciate you guys being here today. Is there any social media pages or anything? Like you said, there was a Facebook page. Is there Instagram? We, I am offering a text savvy. So I think we have a Twitter account but I don't really know. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. No, we didn't do Facebook or honestly, we're working on that but again, we're pretty small. So Facebook or just our website right now would probably be the best place to go. Okay, well I appreciate your time being here and I hope that everyone, you know, definitely takes a look to donate because I feel like it's such a small thing that can go such a long way in someone's life. So. It's been really rewarding. Thank you so much for having us. We really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, that was in the studio with Make It Happen.