Page 22 - Sonoma County Gazette 11-19

One Cold Night
Santa Rosa on Friday, Nov. 8 from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
By Amie Windsor, Development Coordinator, SAY
At Social Advocates for Youth (SAY), we have an intentional set
of core values and they guide what we do, how we do it and why we do it. We provide housing, counseling and career services to vulnerable youth and their families because we love people. When a youth comes through the doors of the SAY Finley Dream Center, we stand beside them in their journey because we are committed to service and we are there for youth when they need it the most.
And we ourselves are youthful and bold. We’re like Miss Frizzle — the new one, apparently, not the old one, according to my kiddos —we constantly learn, ideate and build upon best practices to make better practices so that the needs of each individual, whether they fit in a box or not, are met.
At SAY, we are in it together
and nowhere do we embrace this
value more than during One
Cold Night, our fall fundraising
event. In its fourth year, this
annual event brings together
county leaders and activists to
advocate on behalf of the homeless
youth who are unseen yet very
much among us. And they are
very much among us: the Sonoma County 2019 Point-in-Time Homelessness Census and Survey reported 657 youth experiencing homelessness in Sonoma County; a staggering 93% of those youth are unsheltered, meaning they don’t even have a couch to call home.
That’s where SAY and the amazing 60-plus Sleepers participating in this year’s One Cold Night come in.
One Cold Night is an eight-week fundraising and awareness campaign that culminates on Friday, Nov. 8 with Sleepers spending One Cold Night under the oaks at the Santa Rosa Junior College campus – where in a
2018 survey of SRJC students, 23% of respondents reported experiencing homelessness in the last year. These advocates will have a sleeping bag and a tarp, but nothing else, for the evening. The night likely won’t be pleasant; the temperature is forecasted to be a balmy 46 degrees. Some might sleep, many likely won’t.
FIND archives of Immigrant Stories covering a whole array of topics online @ SonomaCountyGazette.com
22 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 11/19
I think that’s what One Cold Night really comes down to, and why I am such an avid fundraiser and supporter of the event: it encourages us to learn, understand and embody empathy while serving as an opportunity to exercise our value that gives us the most strength at SAY: we’ll be in it
How do I know? I was a Sleeper last year and am now fortunate enough to be part of the staff working on putting the event on this year. My experience didn’t change my life. Not really. But I had a moment around 3 a.m. in Forestville when I awoke with a panic at the howl of a coyote. Flight or fight mode kicked into action, I took a minute or two to remember where I was because I definitely wasn’t tucked into bed with my kids draped heavily over me. A few blinks and it dawned on me I was behind the fire department, on the cement, sleeping next to the now-mayor of Sebastopol, a solid 14 miles away from my family.
I remember clutching the soft rabbit stuffy my oldest daughter let me borrow for the event and feeling a whisper of loneliness in the pit of my stomach. I turned over, tucked my knees into myself and tried to go back to sleep.
But I couldn’t. I kept thinking. At the end of the event, I had a family who supported me through thick and thin that I got to go home to. Ninety percent of the youth who come to SAY can’t say that. In fact, they report they can’t name one caring adult in their life. That’s a young person who could be facing a world of problems and just needs someone to say, “Hi, I see you. I see you’re struggling. It’s ok to need help. It’s ok to not know what that help looks like. How about we figure it out together?”