Silicon Valley foster kids paired with employers by nonprofit

SAN JOSE -- They've grown up as wards of the county, foster kids who learned not to expect any handouts -- if you want to get a leg up, it's going to be done with your own two feet.

"You have to push yourself," said Eric Sykes, a good-natured 21-year-old who ran away from an abusive home at age 16. "There's no one else there to do the pushing for you."

But Sykes and about 35 other eager-eyed teens and young adults recently got a rare and welcome boost from the nonprofit group TeenForce. At a recent hiring fair co-sponsored by the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, they met with potential employers who agreed to give preselected foster youth a break into the working world.

John Hogan, CEO of TeenForce, said the odds are against foster kids and cited some staggering facts: Barely half of them graduate from high school, he said, and nearly a third will end up homeless.

But it's not because they're bad kids, stressed Hogan.

"There's a misperception there that they did something wrong, and that's why they went into foster care," Hogan said. "That's not the case. Something bad happened to them. Their parents may have been neglectful or abusive, arrested or dead. That's when the kids go into the system."

Hogan said that while the foster care system's commitment is to ensure the kids receive an education, what happens when they leave high school is what his nonprofit focuses on.

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"They can get extended foster care and a housing stipend, but it's not enough," he said. "These are not kids who are going to college and someone else is paying the bills. Paying for school and housing and everything else is a pretty big burden for an 18-year-old."

To that end, TeenForce finds partners in the private sector who are willing to take on foster kids who want to work. Orchard Supply Hardware, Goodwill and Home Depot were just a few of the companies at the recent fair that looked into hiring foster kids to fill retail, warehouse and tech assembly positions.

"These guys are really lucky," said Raven Warren, 23. "A lot of this stuff wasn't around for us a few years ago."

Warren still has connections through foster care advocates who told her about the hiring program. She called Hogan a "perfect matchmaker" with a knack for pairing youth with ideal employment.

She was in the system since age 3 because of a drug-addicted mother, and, like other foster kids, she got used to bouncing from place to place with no stability.

"It's hard to say where I'm from; I grew up everywhere," she said. "I say I'm from San Jose, but I've been everywhere and seen it all. There's not a lot that can shock me anymore."

But Warren keeps an eye on her dream. She's writing a book and one day hopes to run a group home for children who are growing up as she did. She said it's easy to feel invisible, and that adds to the ease of falling through the cracks.

"I had a boyfriend whose parents didn't even know there was such a thing as a foster kid," she said, laughing. "I would tell him, 'You come from white linen; I come from a paper towel.' "

She said programs like TeenForce and its partners give disadvantaged youth something more important than the actual job -- a feeling that they're not alone and ignored.