From our founder Jimmy Wayne
Project Meet Me Halfway is a campaign I launched on January 1, 2010 — the day I began walking halfway across America — from Nashville, Tennessee to Phoenix, Arizona — to raise awareness to the plight of the nearly 30,000 foster children aging out of foster care into homelessness every year in America.
Why is it called Meet Me Halfway?
The distance between Nashville, Tennessee and Phoenix, Arizona is halfway across America. The campaign itself is about asking individuals and communities to meet me halfway to help these at risk youth.
It’s also about telling at risk youth that we want to help them but they have to at least meet us halfway. In other words, they have to work hard to help themselves in order to be helped.
Project Meet Me Halfway began as an awareness campaign but people around the world wanted to donate monetarily, so I partnered with The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to create a secure place donors could support Project Meet Me Halfway. 100% of every donation is distributed to needy organizations that serve foster children, abused and neglected children and children aging out of foster care.
Other ways you can help:
Awareness is the most important resource
Read Walk to Beautiful: The Power of Love and a Homeless Kid Who Found the Way. I wrote this book from my own personal experience growing up in the foster care system. Kids in foster care are not bad kids, they’ve just come from bad situations.
Walk To Beautiful has become a handbook for foster and respite parents as it shows life behind the eyes of a foster child, and how to help them.
Readers will gain a clear understanding of what foster kids have gone through and are going through. Readers will also learn how one person can change a child’s life the way Bea Costner, a 75-year-old lady, changed mine with one simple resource that every human on the planet has – Love.
Find out if your state has extended foster care to age 21. If it hasn’t, contact your local legislators (a list is available here https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials ) and inform them that by extending foster care to age 21 the state will save money.
If your state has extended foster care to age 21 find out if each county is implementing the law. If it isn’t then find out why. If it is then find an organization that is serving these children and support that organization.
Get your family, friends and community involved and help one kid. Example: Wrap Around Foster Care Program http://americaskidsbelong.org
No resource is too small. Example: Do you cut hair? Donate one hour a week to foster kids who otherwise can’t afford a haircut. Be a tutor, teach yoga, play basketball, hire a foster kid. There are so many ways to help.