Did you know that 4,000 troubled teenagers lived on the streets of San Francisco last year and more than 6000 at risk youth and their families received preventive, medical and crisis intervention services in our city? STREETSMART4kids aims to help these young people find a better life by raising funds that support the San Francisco Youth Network through equal donations to Huckleberry Youth Programs and Larkin Street Youth Services. These organizations offer services to aid physically, sexually and emotionally abused young people by providing them with the resources and the skills they need to realize lives of dignity and economic self-sufficiency.
STREETSMART4KIDS contributions will help to support these programs.
Huckleberry Youth Programs’ flagship program, Huckleberry House, was founded 43 years ago in San Francisco. Huckleberry House shelter and counseling continues to be a critical service for youth and families in crisis. The program provides six beds for homeless, runaway, and other youth in need of safe shelter and assistance with family reunification. Huckleberry House provides a safe place for youth to reflect on their lives, open vital communication links with their families, and develop skills to avert future crises. The National Network for Youth named Huckleberry Youth Programs as the 2010 Agency of the Year. The award announcement stated, “Huckleberry Youth Programs is eminently qualified for selection, because of the organization’s wide scope of youth programming, years of innovation in the field of youth services, and commitment to collaboration with other youth-serving organizations.” The agency provides a continuum of services and annually serves about 8,000 youth in San Francisco and Marin County.
La Casa de las Madres offers emergency residential shelter to battered women and their children while providing counseling, family-based services and referrals. Our Emergency Crisis Shelter has the capacity to shelter and support 35 women and children per night. La Casa’s downtown San Francisco office houses our two 24-hour Crisis Phone Lines, a Drop-In Counseling Center, the Teen Intervention & Prevention Program, and the Community Education & Outreach Program. All services are offered free-of-charge in English and Spanish.
Larkin Street’s Together Assisting Street Kids (TASK) Program offers a continuum of housing, education and supportive services that helps homeless youths aged 12 to 17 to reunify with their families or, if reunification is not possible, to receive the care and encouragement they need to finish school and build strong foundations for their futures. The TASK program pursues its goals by focusing on crisis intervention services, stabilization services, and long-term solutions to homelessness. TASK is one of an array of programs offered by Larkin Street Youth Services. Founded in 1984, Larkin Street Youth Services is a community-based non-profit dedicated to offering runaway and homeless youths alternatives to street life, and to inspiring them to move beyond the streets and realize their full potential.
