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April 3, 2004 New York
Imagine moving into your first apartment in New York City with nothing. No family or friends to help you. No food, never mind pots, pans and dishes. No sheets or blankets. That's exactly what would have happened to 40 young people aging out of the foster care system, in danger of ending up alone and on the streets. Instead, 60 volunteers and 24 companies generously donated their time, goods and services to furnish apartments for these 17- to 22-year-olds.
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The apartments are part of The Chelsea, a brand new building in the heart of Chelsea that, once finished, will have 167 units for low-income and formerly homeless adults and 40 units of supportive housing for teens who would otherwise be homeless. The building and its comprehensive programming was created through a partnership between Robin Hood-funded groups Good Shepherd Services and Common Ground.
Common Ground is providing the facility management and building-wide services as well as linkages to employment training, while Good Shepherd Services is providing on-site case management, youth development, and mentoring. Together, these groups will ensure that the young adults in their care get everything they need—from housing to academic support to health care to job training—to make the transition to successfully living on their own.
As part of Robin Hood's Home-AID event, volunteers from Credit Suisse First Boston and the community at large outfitted kitchens with pots, pans, dishes, toasters and coffee-makers; they made beds with crisp, clean sheets, blankets and comforters; they hung shower curtains, folded towels, and rolled out bathmats. Refrigerators were stocked with food. And housewarming gifts of soaps, body lotions, chocolates, jams, and handmade paintings were left for each resident.
More than $100,000 in in-kind donations made this transformation from space to comfy, cozy home possible. Bathroom and home furnishings, cookware, skincare products, tools, and food were generously donated by the following companies:
Bed Bath & Beyond
Berkshire Blanket
Better Homes and Gardens
Black and Decker
Carpenter
City Bakery
Cooking.com
Crate & Barrel
Dwell
Fresh Direct
Gracious Home
Jonathan Adler
La-Z-Boy
The Meredith Corporation
Meyer Corporation (Faberware)
ProMart Industries
Rubbermaid
SDI Technologies, Inc.
Select Express
Soft-tex
Umbra
United Feather & Down
United Storage
Waterworks
Wiley Publishers
World Kitchen (OXO, Corelle, Revere)
Thank you to everyone involved for being Robin Hood and showing that there's "no place like home"!
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