JUNE - AUGUST 2024

Beginning in the second week of June through the summer months, Anderson Outreach will provide a weekly “grab & go” lunch along with a backpack fill of fun learning tools, age-appropriate activities/toys to pass those warm summer days, as well as gender necessary toiletries, school supplies, and more surprises! The Summer Lunch & Power Packs for Kids program will close on August 23!

AUGUST 2024

A time to celebrate The Anderson Outreach first year with our amazing donors and partners. The family friendly fundraiser will have great food, live music, and fun activities. More information will come when we mail out our invitations soon.

YEAR ROUND

Ensuring that the forgotten youth do not miss a holiday. We deliver stockings filled with goodies and gifts with a breakfast meal, Easter/Spring Bags, birthday parties and activities for youth who reside in psychiatric treatment facilities and other group home settings. Most of these young people have been returned to the state system by foster and adoptive parents. Many of them have parents who have forfeited their parental rights voluntarily or involuntarily. They typically do not have visits from family members or friends. They feel abandoned and we provide hope and something for them to look forward to around the holidays.

Holidays include Birthdays/Special Occasions, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Easter/Spring, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

YEAR ROUND

We assist youth with mental health diagnosis and disabilities with their transitions from psychiatric treatment facilities, group homes and foster care. Most transitions bring anxiety and fear. For these young adults those emotions are often magnified because they do better in situations where they can anticipate what happens next. Too often there isn’t much notice of the move. Their personal items are often thrown in a trash because they do not have their own personal luggage.

We believe that how young adults show up to new experiences can shift their expectations. So, we are committed to replacing these trash bags with 1 piece of luggage that they can call their own. We personalized each bag with their initials. Luggage tags have essential phone numbers, the suicide prevention line and other emergency services that they can access discretely should they find themselves in an unsafe setting.

We will touch at a minimum, 100 lives this year. Join us in our effort to provide dignity, a basic sense of ownership and compassion along their journey to their next home.

This initiative is called Baggage Claim because you get to check in the trash bags and old baggage, to make room in their heart for positive experiences with their new luggage!