well it is an often forgotten about group of young people who are left to figure things out on their own think about it we hear a lot about programs to get children adopted but what happens when they age out of the foster care system now the mission of my next guest is to help youth who have experienced homelessness after foster care Rea Atkins the founder of Rise is joining me straight out of Fort wor Texas this morning but your organization Reika is all about helping uh kids all across North T
exas so welcome on into the studio thank you so much and thank than you for having me absolutely so I want you to tell me about rise why you created this organization what was that deficit out there that made you say oh no I see this and I got to do something about it yes I created rise out of my own experience being a part of the foster care system and understanding that there was not a lot of support system once youed age out of the foster care system now stem education and resources really th
at's built into the pillars of your organization yes I've done my research I want to know specifically why you choose to focus on stem as it relates to making sure these young folks have the resources they need well honestly it's from personal Pursuit but also stem is one of the fields that is well known and it's well um um provided for on top of that it's a low barrier to entry it does not take a lot to get into the stem field and you can pick up science technology engineering and math in any f
ield that you go into so that's why I chose it and I think a lot of people miss that too that you can pick pick up STEM related uh resources in any field that you are in um what are some of the often overlooked resources that children who age out of the foster care system need that your organization can help provide mental health even just a support system just someone there to advocate for them to get them into the services that they need to get them back connected to the services that they had
while they were in foster care also housing helping them to navigate how to find housing cuz it's hard finding housing and also we have a you know we have a deficit of affordable housing so having someone there to advocate for them when they don't have the background when they don't have the credit when they don't have the experience is very important to us one of the things that caught my attention I think a couple of years ago when I initially learned about rise and the work that you're doing
you had a program for young girls during the summer uh for stem education tell me about that program yes we have the Herod summer stem experience it's for girls who have experience in the foster care system they can be in the system be siblings of people in the system every summer in Fort Worth and now in Houston okay we provide a summer stem experience where we teach them life skills we have Civic engagement we teach them how to talk to City officials City officials come and talk to them oh it
's so amazing and you know it's just unique because otherwise they would not get that exposure they would not get that access and that's what we aim to do and I was just about to say when it comes to exposure to those type of people that are in these City positions I don't remember being in high school or just fresh out of high school well I would have an opportunity to even speak to those type of people so cool stuff there I'm so happy you were able to mention that you have something that's com
ing up that also caught my attention on LinkedIn CU I've been following what's going on with you and the organization it's called the Brilliance ball and I think it's appropriately named for the young people that you interact with tell us about the Brilliance ball and how people can support it yes so this year is our first year that we have enough girls who've gone to college from our summer camp we've been doing it for six years so now that they've gone to college we want to gift them with Scho
larships in the names of some very influential people in Fort Worth we have Congressman Mark VC who's going to be our honorary chair Dr Karen Duncan from JPS and also Dr syvia Trent Adams who are going to lend their names and their reputations to name these scholarships after them it's going to be a tech experience we're it's going to be amazing it's going to be ar I'm not going to give too much away I was about to say don't give them out it because you need the support yes so Rea uh certainly t
hank you so much for joining us and if we can pull that graphic up one more time I just want to make sure people have the information that they need to be able to support this organization it is the Brilliance ball.com you can take a quick picture of this Friday May 3rd is happening at the social space over in Fort Worth and from the Brilliance ball website they can go and find more information about rise as well so Rea thank you so much for joining us this morning thank you so much for having m
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