Meet "Natalie"

This months feature girl is "Natalie" Natalie likes things to be neat. She takes great pride in decorating her room with her favorite things and in organizing the common areas of the group home. Her peers have voted her the manager of the home because of her great administrative skills. She is a hard worker, making the honor roll this past year. Recent test scores showed her testing two grade levels above her current school grade. Natalie also shows a lot of care for her peers, often being the first to welcome in a new resident.

         Natalie entered foster care at the age of fourteen. Her mother died a few years before she entered care and the Department of Social Services removed her from her father's care. When she was removed, she lived with her father in a drug house where a great deal of prostitution of was taking place. She was addicted to multiple drugs, had poor grades due to poor attendance and it was suspected that Natalie was being prostituted out. Many of these behaviors continued when she first entered foster care. After multiple placements, Natalie entered the Girls' Home in late summer, 2008. In the last eight months, she has made amazing strides as evidenced in her likes and her hopes for the future.

anyway, On October 16th (saturday) I will be helping a local church and their church group decorating pumpkins, having a bonfire, and making s'mores! While attending the Spartanburg International Fest. on Saturday, I actually ran into a couple girls from the girls home! That was cool. On Thursdays, I will be tutoring the girls and eating dinner with them! This has been such a neat journey!