Helping Fostered Youth in the Seattle Area

By Kristen E.

When first trying to decide on an advocacy for my WoHeLo Award, I had a hard time deciding what to do, until I thought about the time I volunteered at Treehouse with my basketball team. Treehouse is an organization that helps youth in foster care by providing them with support and helping them create opportunities for them to pursue their dreams so they can become productive members of the community. Treehouse takes donated clothes and supplies, then puts them into a free store where families with foster children can come and pick up essential items.

Treehouse has made volunteering so much fun! I had enjoyed my volunteer time so much that I wanted to do something to help them. After looking at their website, I found out that there were many different ways to take action. I chose to do a gently used clothing drive, as well as host a volunteer session.  I held the clothing drive at my church because there are many families with different aged children who attend.

Along with hosting a clothing drive, I also organized a clothing exchange with my Camp Fire group and some of my other friends. We all brought bags of gently used clothes and exchanged a few items with one another. All the clothes that were left were added to my clothing drive.

Once all the clothes were collected, my mom and I took the clothes to Treehouse! They were so nice and very thankful to receive all the clothes we had collected. We even got to tour their warehouse and storage area with one of their volunteers.

For the last part of my advocacy, I organized a group volunteer session. I asked my group and my extended family members to help. We all sorted the donated clothes, tagged them and entered them into Treehouse’s inventory system.  The time went by quickly and we had so much fun while we were doing something so meaningful!

Helping Treehouse in any way you can, can go a long way. Treehouse is grateful for anything you can do whether that is hosting a drive, volunteering, or donating clothes.  I would definitely recommend Treehouse as an advocacy!

If you would like to learn more about Treehouse, you can visit their website.

Thank You, Kristen!

We would like to thank Kristen for taking the time to write us this amazing blog about her successful clothing drive for Treehouse!

Starting in 9th-grade, teens who participate in Group Program or our various Teen Leadership Programs are eligible to begin earning their WoHeLo Award. The WoHeLo Award is Camp Fire’s highest achievement and is given to teens who complete the requirements by demonstrating leadership skills, self-confidence, respect for others, organizational skills and a desire and ability to make a difference in the world.

Feel free to contact us today for more information on Group Program!