It’s a cold, blustery November afternoon and Teshina Edwards is
shopping for her little boy Isaiah. “He needs pants really bad,” she
says, sifting through a rack of jeans. But when
Edwards takes her giant turquoise shopping bag—loaded with
pants, books, used toys, and new socks—to the checker, she won’t
need to open her wallet.
Edwards is at the Wearhouse, a project run by the nonprofit
Treehouse, which assists foster children and other kids under the
state’s care in King County. Everything in the Rainier Valley
store—which looks and sounds like the inside of a Ross Dress for
Less, complete with chrome clothing racks and Motown shoo-wop-ing from
the speakers—is free.
The state gives funds to foster families, but the money only covers
about 60 percent of the real cost of raising a foster child, says
Jessica Ross, a spokeswoman for Treehouse. And many foster parents,
like Edwards, care for multiple foster children or are the unexpected
(and financially unprepared) recipients of a relative’s abused or
neglected child.
Two-year-old Isaiah, for example, was born addicted to crack and
spent the first month of his life in detox. He has been in Edwards’s
care since he was 6 weeks old. “His parents couldn’t take care of him,”
she says of her cousins. She also cared for another cousin’s 8-year-old
boy for six months.
“When I had both kids, Treehouse helped me out so much. For families
who don’t have all that much, especially in this economy, it’s a
lifesaver,” says Edwards, 27, an inventory regulator for kitchen
supplier Sur La Table. “If you didn’t have the opportunity to come
here… how often would you be able to buy your kid a $7 book?”
This year, The Stranger is donating the proceeds from
Strangercrombie, our annual charity auction, to Treehouse. (Last year,
Strangercrombie raised over $60,000 for FareStart, which provides
culinary job training and placement for homeless men and women. The
auction begins December 4 at www.thestranger.com/strangercrombie.)
Treehouse was founded in 1988 by a group of social workers who were
frustrated by the lack of resources for foster kids in Washington
State. They wanted to provide tutoring and therapeutic services to the
kids and economic assistance to their foster families. Now with 60
staffers and 1,400 volunteers, Treehouse serves roughly 4,000 kids each
year.
The statistics for foster kids, most of whom have suffered severe
abuse or neglect, are dismal: According to the Washington State
Institute for Public Policy, fewer than half of Washington’s foster
children graduate from high school, 75 percent are living in poverty,
and only 27 percent passed the 10th-grade WASL in 2006. According to
the local Casey Family Foundation, only 3 percent of foster children
graduate from college.
While Treehouse doesn’t commission reports on the impact of its
programs, social workers, parents, and lawmakers agree the nonprofit
has vastly improved lives in King County. “Treehouse has helped
children expect that they can see a future that includes higher
education instead of giving up,” says state representative Ruth Kagi,
chair of the Early Learning and Children’s Services Committee.
December is the busiest season at Treehouse, and the staff believes
that this year will be especially difficult for parents, who are
bracing for a tough economy. “Kid stuff is really expensive now,” says
Guerline Rupern, 30, a single mother who works 45 hours a week as a
home health aide to support her six children.
The free-clothing emporium is only a fraction of Treehouse’s scope,
which includes tutoring, therapeutic extracurricular activities, and
backing legislation that supports foster families.
Treehouse has drafted and helped push several successful bills in
the state legislature, most notably an education bill in 2003 that
requires school districts to keep foster kids in the same school
whenever possible. The law also established a panel to coordinate state
agencies and nonprofits that deal with foster families.
“Having a kid sit in front of a committee and talk about going to 15
schools had a huge impact,” says Representative Kagi. She says
Treehouse was vital to the bill’s success. “Ten years ago, to the
legislature, the primary issue was safety. Education wasn’t even
discussed.”
“We are trying to really normalize a situation that is not normal,”
Ross says. “We know it can’t be perfect, but we know we are making a
difference.” 