Jenny's Story
Searching for Her Father, Finding Her Identity
Covenant House shelters over 1,700 homeless teenagers every night of the year. Each one of these poor children has a unique history, but it is invariably one of loneliness and abandonment. Absentee or disinterested parents account for most of the sadness in these kids young and troubled lives. But in recent memory, few have endured the same degree of utter heartbreak as Jenny.
Jenny's mother died when she was very young. Raised in Chicago foster homes from the time she was four years old, she was an earnest and naïve child. By the time she was a teenager she could no longer stand the harsh world of the foster home and she set out on her own. For two years she lived in an abandoned building with a few other kids her age.
When she turned 17 she discovered that her father was alive and living in New York City. She wrote to him and asked if she could visit; he wrote back that she could. Jenny meticulously packed her backpack and set out on a weeklong hitchhiking journey to New York. On that long and arduous trip she created exaggerated expectations about the new life that was waiting for her with her real father. When she finally arrived at his apartment door, he actually didn't want to see her at all. He was a serious crack addict, and he only wanted to know if she had any money.
Jenny was devastated. That's when she came to Covenant House. In our world of lost and hurting kids, Jenny stood out immediately as the most lost and hurting of all: an innocent completely lacking in identity, forced to go through life not really knowing who she is, where she came from, or where she was going next.
It's bound to take time, but soon, through love and counseling, we will help Jenny reclaim her life. Then she will rebuild it through our Rights of Passage program. In Rights of Passage we'll help Jenny get everything she needs to pass from childhood to adulthood -- an education, job training, independent living skills -- complete with a caring mentor who will guide and encourage her every step of the way.
It will be a long journey, but we're confident that Jenny will make it. And we thank you, as always, for being there for Jenny and the other 1,699 kids we'll see tonight. It's your support that helps us lift them up when they're at rock bottom.
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