Livingstone College partners with nonprofit to help teens aging out of foster care system

SALISBURY, N.C. — Livingstone College is ensuring teens in foster care are not forgotten after they get out.

The college partnered with the nonprofit Home4Me to provide year-round housing and resources for students who have aged out of foster care.

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Livingstone College President Anthony J. Davis was in the foster care system and emancipated himself at 17 years old by joining the U.S. Air Force.

Davis and Donna Reed, executive director for Home4Me, announced the Center for Aging Out.

“The reason why this is so key, we continue to groom them as we do through their teenage years and say to them, ‘You don’t have to worry about those things. You don’t have to worry about food. You don’t have to worry about housing or who is going to support you,’ because that is what is going to take place here,” Reed said.

Half of the youth raised in foster care finish high school and less than 5% graduate from a four-year college,” according to the National Foster Youth Institute.

Davis wants to use his platform to change that.

“If they knew there was a center where there was care, compassion, and conviction, I believe that we can begin making a change and I believe there is an old quote that says, ‘Be the change that you want to see,’” Davis said.

The center is set to open this summer with 20 students from New York, Connecticut, and North Carolina.

Tionna Reed is a Home4me campus mentor and said she hears the struggles from her peers.

“You never know what’s going on or what somebody else is going through so that’s another reason why I just had to,” she said. “I just felt the need to want to be a part of it.”