A 2nd Act: A New Path
Giving hope and a future to foster children
By Judy Pearson
“Why can’t I come back next year?” Brandon asked. It seemed like a good question to Michael Brewer. He was volunteering at a camp for foster children and 11-year-old Brandon was one of his two charges. After the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, Brewer heard a sermon at church urging for more involvement in the lives of America’s youth. That message led him to volunteer at the camp, which served foster children aged 11 and under.
When Brewer showed up for volunteer duties the next year, he was asked the same question by another 11 year old, and his answer was the same, “I don’t know.” But the repeated question led him to further reflection. This camp was the only time some of the children got to spend with siblings who were living with other foster families. So he pitched the idea of including older kids. The camp’s managers said no.
“Putting a face on foster-care kids changes everything,” Brewer said. “They’re just like any other kid, except that they’ve been put on a path — and not a great one — that was chosen for them, without any input from them.” So in 2004, he set about creating a new path, launching Hope and A Future. Their first camp was held two years later, welcoming 12 to 15 year olds. When, at the end, the older kids posed the original question: “Why can’t we come back?” Brewer’s response was, “You can!” And his work ever since has been to grow a foster-care support organization like no other in the Valley.
Teenagers in foster care have only a 10 percent chance of adoption. Kids not adopted age out of the system, rarely going back to their parents. The other statistics are just as grim: One in five teens in foster care becomes homeless; one in four becomes incarcerated; just 33 percent graduate from high school and only 3 percent go on to college.
“We realized programs for older kids were essential,” Brewer explained. “We begin our Life Skills program when kids are 12. By 15, they’ve already developed bad habits. We offer tutoring and incentives for good grades.”
The organization becomes like an extended family for these kids. “They turn back to our volunteers for guidance, many of whom take the place of parents. And we send birthday cards to them, with a gift card enclosed. These kids have spent most of their lives hardly ever getting recognition for that one day a year,” Brewer said.
Hope and A Future is making strides against the college statistic, too. In 2007, they set up the John Brewer Scholarship Program, in honor of Brewer’s brother, who died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. To date, they’ve awarded 85 scholarships to Grand Canyon University. Chelsea, who attended their first camp, graduated from GCU as a nurse, is now working at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and is about to be married. A set of twins who went through camp are also in the college-graduate column, as is Brandon, the young man who set Brewer on this path in the first place. Brandon received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from GCU, and is now a married, middle school teacher and high school football coach.
Brewer’s goals for the organization are as expansive as the desert sky. Camp attendance has grown from 25 that first year to 345 kids this past summer. He recognizes the need to zero in on 12-year-old boys, finding mentors to walk life with them, so that when they turn 18, they’re walking a good life. While getting more kids into the programs would make it wider, Brewer hopes that they can maintain relationships with those they already have, making it deeper.
More money would mean more educational needs fulfilled, and more staff to help coordinate volunteers. Volunteers and mentors are the organization’s lifeline. Not only do they serve the kids already in the program, but it is through them that the organization learns about other kids in need.
Hope and A Future celebrates their 15th anniversary this month. And Brewer’s original vision couldn’t be more clear: One day, all children in the Arizona foster-care system will have hope for their future.
To learn more, go to azhope.com.
