Your year-end donations to support youth facing homelessness at Covenant House New Jersey are needed more than ever. We are proud that we served 1,811 youth across the state in FY24, which was 22% greater than the youth we served in FY23. But we are saddened that our services are facing an ever increasing demand with a waiting list of roughly 140 as of December 10th. Here is CEO, Julia Einbond’s holiday message to the CHNJ community on why your support is needed.
A Message from Julia Einbond, CEO
I remember the first time I heard the piano at our Youth Engagement Center.
One thing I’ve learned as CEO with an office inside our 45-bed building in Newark is there’s always activity, bustle, and chaos that comes from walking in each morning. I’ve also learned that the most important things happening in our community can rarely be seen. You can’t see a young person’s determination not to let another setback destroy their confidence.
You can’t see a young person’s connection with a staff deepen with each frustration they work through together. You can’t see safety, sleep, and good food nourish a body that has been bounced around from foster home to foster home and eventually kicked out, again.
But, for the last year, you could hear it. Everyone and anyone who walked the halls of Covenant House last year heard it. This unlikely melody practiced by a young man who may have appeared as the unlikeliest of piano players.
You see, Daniel only started to play piano during his stay at Covenant House. His path to our doors was not an easy one at all. However, he was one of those young people who would try anything. One day, a volunteer in our Dove Learning Center (DLC) named Annie asked him if he wanted to learn how to play the piano. He said okay.
When I started at Covenant House, we didn’t have a music program… we didn’t even have the DLC inside our building. Thanks to our supporters, we’ve grown a lot in the past few years. Last year, our staff and our volunteers provided 7,874 Dove Learning Center activities to many of the 1,811 young people and survivors of human trafficking we served in FY24.
Unfortunately, the need for our services has grown even faster. As I write this letter to you, the waiting list for our shelter services has over 100 young people on it. The need has never been greater and it’s happening at a time when we approach the holidays with cold nights in our forecast.
Daniel entered Covenant House with a 9th grade education. He was determined to pass his GED. He knew that not having a high school diploma was one of his obstacles to exiting homelessness.
Piano became the thing he came back to in good moments and bad. Every day, I’d hear music pouring into my office. At first, the notes came, tentatively, from the music room. Then, they came joyfully and sweeping from the gym, where the staff moved the piano so Daniel could play anytime he wanted.
By the time Daniel had passed 3 out of the 4 sections of the GED, he played so well we asked him to share a song he learned on YouTube on stage at our annual event at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. He also performed at our Give Me Shelter event in October.
A few months later, Daniel passed that last section and moved into his own apartment, with his own piano.
Sure, he still calls with questions like how to turn on the gas. He’s ready to learn to cook now that he has his own kitchen. And we call him, too, when we have an event and need a talented performer to inspire the newest members of our community.
I know he has inspired me to keep listening and remembering that the work of ending youth homelessness is long and uncertain, but it is powered by the determination of a community that knows working together is the only way.
As a believer in our mission and work at Covenant House, we need your continued support to make sure young people like Daniel continue to have the support they need to move forward, with more resilience and determination than ever before.
Please give as generously as you can this holiday season, as your gift will be put into immediate action to serve the young people who show up daily at our doors. Your gift will ensure that the rarely seen, but most important things happening in our Covenant community will continue and continue to result in transformational life change.
Your year end donations are needed more than ever, so please make a gift to help youth like Daniel and know that we value you and the support you give to our young people at Covenant House New Jersey. Thank you so much!
With gratitude,
Julia Einbond, CEO
