The tally is complete: a total of 1,392 young people were assisted by the John Burton Advocates for Youth’s Critical Needs and Opportunity Program.
The program runs from July 1 to June 30 of each year. It provides direct, financial assistance to youth who have been in foster care or experienced homelessness to address an urgent need or fund an enrichment opportunity. The 2023-24 fiscal year was the second full year of the program. For the decade prior to that, JBAY operated the Burton Book Fund, which paid for textbooks for foster youth attending post-secondary education, including career and technical education.
The Critical Needs and Opportunity Program was the brainchild of JBAY board member Pat Dodson, who together with her husband Jerry, generously supports the program. For Pat, this kind of support is an issue of basic fairness. “What happens to a student if someone steals the bike she uses to get to class, or he doesn’t have enough money to buy textbooks, or she can’t cover her electric bill? If they have family, they call home and ask for help. For foster youth living independently, that’s not an option.”
Administration and Finance Manager Lorris Leung manages the Critical Needs and Opportunity Fund, working closely with our 68 community partners from across California. She sees first-hand the important role the program plays for youth and the organizations working hard to serve them. “This program enables our partners to provide immediate assistance and support that may not have been possible, directly benefiting the youth in their community.”
Youth use the program support for a range of purposes. Housing assistance is very common, including assistance with moving costs, rent and security deposits. A young woman from San Joaquin County received help after a fire broke out in her apartment building requiring her to move immediately into a hotel and replace many personal belongings.
“For youth who have been in foster care or homeless, tragedies like this can take years to recover from because they don’t have a network of financial and social support,” according to Executive Director Amy Lemley. “I am grateful that JBAY help prevent that.”
Other young people used the financial support for expenses as fundamental as food. This included a young woman experiencing homelessness in Northern California, who was fleeing domestic violence and didn’t have any money to eat for the next several days.
Enrichment is another focus of the program and over 75 young people used it for this purpose. This included gym memberships, pet supplies, a landscape architecture conference, music lessons, fraternity dues, the latest trilogy of young adult fiction and more.
For our partners, the flexibility of the program they value most, According to a youth service provider in San Bernardino County, “Some of our other funding has limitations when it comes to providing assistance to our youth, and balancing the needs of individual youth versus the needs of the program as a whole can be tricky. The JBAY Critical Needs and Opportunity Fund has been an incredible help for us, allowing us the ability to help individual youth in need as those needs arise and in a flexible, impactful way.”