New Destiny Pathways Celebrates 10th Anniversary
CEO and Co-Founder Nikiedra Battle DeBarge and COOCo-Founder Alice Vasser COO came from two different perspectives. DeBarge was a Case Manager and Vasser was a foster parent.
DeBarge: I was a prosecutor Case Manager for teens and had young women and young men whom I had to teach life skills to and kind of help them to navigate the community and get resources that they needed. I had a situation with a young lady who had desolved her placement and had some mental health concerns, so I had to take her to a homeless shelter be cause there was nowhere else for her to go at that age. It broke my heart that I had to take someone struggling with mental health and a very vulnerable youth to a homeless shelter.
Vasser: I had two nieces who had come to live with me because my sister was struggling with drugs at the time. I didn't want to see them go into the foster care system so I took them into my home. I saw some of the struggles that those two young girls were going through at thirteen and seven at the time. The thirteen year old really had a struggle. She would run away and wanted to go live back with her mom, so I saw the struggle that she went through being placed with and aunt that she really didn't know. So I thought to myself that if she was having this issue, then there has to be other young ladies who are having the same issues. I thought to myself that I would like to do something for young girls who are facing that same issue. Later I was working with a lady whose background was law and I shared with her what I wanted to do and she agreed to draw up the business plan but didn't follow through, but I met another lady who had opened a home for boys so I connected with her and let her know that I had a friend who also wanted to open a home for young women and that woman turned out to be Nekeidra DeBarge. So the three of us got together in 2011 and collaborated on the idea and in 2012 we opened our first home.
GRT: Since you started your home for young female teens, has there been more resources available for young people?
DeBarge: Housing is an issue for everyone, but I think that it is difficult for that population because they are in between because they are not necessarily teens but they are young adults who are not necessarily ready for some of the things that adulthood offers and so there is a gap and we want to help to fill that gap. Yes there are resources centered around foster care but housing and having the life skills is all in one, there are also not a lot of resources for that. We didn't want it to just be a housing program or just life skills but we wanted to walk along side them as they were growing and as they are learning themselves and to help them navigate services in the community and real life.
GRT: How many youth are currently in the program?
DeBarge: Currently we have two youth in our program. We can take six teens but because of Covid-19, we reduced it to four. We just had some resent transitions where young ladies left and went on to move into their own places. We could do twelve girls and have two to a room but we are just very intentional about giving them their own space because a lot of them have never had that before. So they have their own room and a key to it as well as access to the kitchen, laundry room, living room and dinning room. We didn't want to just do something but we wanted to provide excellence in what we did.
GRT: Do you have an adult who oversees the youth?
Vasser: We starting out having a Housing Dean whose age was around thirty and we found out that it worked because the young ladies coming in were from the ages of seventeen and they can stay until they are twenty-one. Some of them called her House Mom but they really related to her as a big sister because there is now a big age gap. Today we have served over sixty young women from the time we first opened our doors to currently. We've been to baby showers, weddings and have helped some of them start their own businesses so we have also been to business launch parties so it has been phenomenal. Our last housing dean stayed with us for eight years but we are currently looking for our next housing dean. Right now we do have a grandmother figure living with the young women.
GRT: How did the 10 years celebration event come about?
Debarge: Well it has been 10 years and it is not often that you see young Black women who have started something from the ground up with very minimum resources. So we wanted to be intentional about celebrating the work that has gone forth in the last 10 years. Every year we have a fundraiser of some short but we wanted make sure that this one was epic. We want the community to know that we are here, but we also wanted to just celebrate ourselves because sometimes when you are in the thick of things you don't get that chance. So this is a celebration for Alice and myself and we are excited about it.
The Black Tie 10 year celebration will be held on Thursday, August 11, 2022 at the Center for Community Transformation, located at 15 Madison Ave. SE, Grand Rapids, MI.
For more information about New Destiny Pathways, please go to newdestinypathways.com or email them at newdestinypathways@gmail.com. If you have an individual who is in foster care and transitioning to a residential facility or a foster home, they can go to the website, fill out an application and we will go from there. It is a transitional program that offers more support than an individual living program because the program provides a supervision component that is much needed.
Tagged in: