>Please join CHS in asking King County to restore the $359,683 cut from the King County Children and Family Commission budget for 2010. These dollars go to support the Safe Communities project, which in 2008 supported 702 youth at risk. The daily cost of Safe Communities is $1.78 per youth. A bargain, when you consider the daily cost of juvenile detention is $450 per youth.
Contact King County Council Members today! Contact information can be found here.
35% of the youth who benefited from Safe Communities dollars were served by the Center for Human Services. Youth benefit from access to positive adult mentors, after-school programs and community service opportunities. Here are a few posts from the blog that tell the story:
Ballinger Action Teens Summer Fun
Homework Factory Celebrates Eritrea and Ethiopia
One of our teens summed up the positive impact of Safe Communities funded activities:
“Community service has been a really good influence on me. One of the good influences it had on me is that it has kept me out of trouble. If I didn’t do community service after school or on the weekend I would have hung out with troublemaker kids. Every time I go to do my community service I feel happy and ready to help out my community. Community service is not just about the hours, it is about you wanting to help your community. When I started volunteering I used to care only about getting my hours, that was all that was on my mind. Now I think about what we are doing and it feels good to do community service hours. Community service has shown me how to work with kids and different groups of people. I have learned many things from volunteering at Center for Human Services.”