Goal

My goal is to help youth in two of my favorite cities: San Francisco and Mar del Plata, Argentina.

How?

For every $1 you donate to my campaign to help ATC continue their efforts in helping homeless youth in the streets of San Francisco, I will donate $1 to the youth where I volunteered in Mar del Plata, Agentina!

All $ donated through this website will go directly to ATC. At the end of the ATC campaign, I will match the donations and send a check to the children in Mar del Plata. Any little bit goes a long way!

I chose this goal because

As most of you know, I spent all of 2006 volunteering with children in a poor community in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

I worked in a "comedor", which is kindof like a soup kitchen for kids + more. The kids came to comedor when they weren't in school to eat a big meal (that they wouldn't get otherwise) and to play with other kids in the neighborhood. There were close to 100 every day...in two shifts and my job was to play with them! That´s it....teaching them english words, talking about the US or music or dancing, playing hide and seek...everything. Their whole world was their neighborhood, so anything that I said or did was new to them.

The reality of life of at the comedor was hard. The roads were made of dirt, there were no street signs or lights and the homes were usually made of scraps of things found lying around. Many of the kids were abused, came from broken homes or were 1 of 8-12 siblings. They were all in desperate need of love and affection.

So, I woke up every morning and told myself that the children just needed to be reminded that someone loved them and that it was my job to do it. I spent a year giving the comedor kids a little more attention, a little longer hug, and 1000 extra kisses .

I'm helping because

We are all so lucky for what we have in our lives: a hot meal, a warm blanket, a solid roof over our heads. We take those basic things for granted. While economic times are hard and have affected us all, we are still so fortunate.

I'm helping because At The Crossroads is a phenomenal organization that works with homeless youth in my neighborhood, The Mission, in San Francisco. The counselors walk the streets, handing out basic necessities and gradually develop relationships with the kids in the neighborhood. ATC counselors have reached 5,200 young people on the streets and worked one-on-one with 1,000 youth in intensive counseling relationships.

I'm also helping because there isn't a day that passes that I don't think of my little kids in Argentina. Their summer will soon be coming to an end. They will go back to school around the same time that this campaign will end. They will need shoes, backpacks, and jackets for the winter. Without some help, those shoes will have holes in them. Those year-old backpacks... torn. Those hand-me-down jackets.... too small.

Help me support homeless youth in San Francisco and impoverished children in Argentina at the same time!

"You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you"