In May of last year we launched  Forsaken Generation Jacksonville (or Team Jacksonville). We are currently working to support the efforts of 10 organizations in Jacksonville working with children and youth who are homeless. They are as follows:  Daniel Kids,The Sulzbacher Center, Trinity Rescue Mission, Youth Crisis Center,Family Promise, City Rescue Mission, Community Connections, House of Angels,Jasmyn and Seamark Ranch.

What we discovered when we toured these shelters was nothing short of heartbreaking. Every shelter is filled to maximum capacity every night. One of the shelters had as many as 80 to 100 children staying at the shelter every single night. What’s even worse, there’s a 1 month waiting list to get help. Basically what that means is that if a child or youth needs help they have to wait a month to get it. Each of the organizations that we visited are being stretched to their limits. They are doing as much as they can but they all need so much help.

If you visit our YouTube page, you can see the interview I did with Jimmy Kelly of Daniel Kids.

What can you do to help?

We encourage people to start by doing just one thing. There are numerous volunteer opportunities available. Here’s a list of just a few of them:

1.       Adopt a Room – Each year thousands of women and children come seeking help after a hardship of some sort.  When they arrive – either from other shelters or off the streets, they usually just have the clothes on their backs.  While the shelters we work with can provide them with a room, with clothes, with the security they hunger for and with a chance for a new life, they cannot provide them with the basic items they need to make their new ‘home’ feel like a ‘home’.  Our Adopt a Room program was designed to bring volunteers into the shelters to create a “home” environment for the women and children entering the program.  Items such as sheets, pillows, blankets, towels and washcloths, personal toiletry items, a table lamp and an alarm clock make all the difference in the world to a family that enters a facility with nothing but the clothes on her back. To learn more about adopting a room, check out this video by clicking here.

2.       Mentoring – Many homeless children do not have a positive adult role model in their lives. Many have been abandoned and abused. At its most basic level, mentoring helps because it guarantees a young person that there is someone who cares about them. A child is not alone in dealing with day-to-day worries. Think back. Did you know how to study for a test or make plans for college? Do you remember wanting your first car or looking for a part-time job? Simple things that seem easy or straightforward to you now may appear to be a complete mystery to a child that is homeless. You can change the life of a child by participating in our mentoring program.

We currently have multiple mentoring opportunities available depending on the age range of the child you would like to mentor.  Length of commitment and hours are flexible.

3.       Collections  – The shelters are in desperate need of many items that simply can’t be purchased for the residents. With recent cuts in funding, the needs are greater than ever. You can collect some of these items, even organize a drive at your school, work or church. Here is a wish list of items needed, click here.

4.       You can also help teach a class that helps teach: Resume writing, interviewing skills, job coaching, computer skills and more!

5.       Or maybe you have your own creative idea on how you can help make a difference in the lives of these children!

If you’re interested in getting involved visit our Contact Us page. Submit your info and we’ll get you plugged in to the right opportunity for you!

For a list of each organizations needs you van visit our Blog page.

Tickets are $10 in advance (FREE drink with pre sale ticket purchase), $15 day of show. BUY your ticket NOW for only $10 for a LIMITED time only!  http://freedomfestjax.eventbrite.com

FREE DRINK upon entrance with every ticket purchase!)

(so you’re actually only paying 5 bucks for a ticket ! awesome huh? AND it’s for a GREAT cause!)

Make sure you get your tickets now before they sell out: http://freedomfestjax.eventbrite.com/

This is an all day music festival featuring some of Jacksonville’s best talent!

The lineup is as follows:

Something Distant
Story Side:B
Charlie Walker
Nate Holley
Sharon Wilbur – American Idol
Chuck Nash Band
Peter Dearing
Brown Bag Special
Colby Word
Kicking Lassie
Out of Hand
A Call For Kylie
Party of Four (formerly known as Freeze Frame)
Ron Rodriguez
Natalie Patterson
Sack the City
Red Afternoon
Amber Delacruz
Leo and the Sun
Cheesy T
Café Groove

The event is sponsored by:

The Florida Times Union, Buzz Magazine,

BlackKeyDesigns.com

Join Freedom Fest on Facebook here.

On July 4th we are asking you to spend 34 minutes of your time doing something you likely do every single day….walking. You can walk anytime you want, we recommend starting your walk 1 hour prior to your cities largest Fireworks display. Or you can participate in the ‘virtual’ walk here on Facebook by simply posting a picture or video on your page and ours !

How? You won’t believe how easy this is!

1. Wear a red t-shirt (Red signifies love, passion; it also means a vital force.)
2. Make a sign that says “Every hour 34 children in the U.S. are forced into prostitution, visit forsakengeneration.com to help”.
3. Then go walk ! walk by yourself, walk with friends, walk with whoever you like, just simply go and walk for 34 minutes.
4. Don’t want to actually walk? that’s ok! wear the shirt, make the sign and you can walk ‘virtually’ by taking a pic and uploading to your Facebook page as well as posting here on our event page, and to our Fan page:http://www.facebook.com/forsakengeneration

If you use Twitter the hashtag for the day of the event is #freedomwalk

This isn’t just a walk, it’ a movement, so we want to share it with the whole world to show how many people care about this. So after you get done walking we need you to just do us one more favor, we’ll give you a few options, you only have to pick one!

1. Upload a picture
2. Take a video
3. Tell us a story, why are you walking?

Whichever one you choose, simply post it here on the Facebook event page and our fan page. And then watch as the pictures, videos and stories start pouring in throughout the day. Whatever you post, make sure you tell us where you are from! At the end we’ll make a list of every city that participated !!

As a nation we will stand together with one voice for these children who have no voice.
For information in the 2010 Freedom Walk, read below:

USA Today talks about 2010 Freedom Walk. Click here to read the article.

Freedom Walk 2010 was a HUGE success thanks to our amazing volunteers who poured their heart into making this happen.

Prior to the walk Melissa Ross (WJCT Jacksonville) interviewed our founder (Sean Wrench) along with an agent from the FBI who is part of their special task force on human trafficking. If you missed the interview you can listen HERE.

The Jacksonville, Florida Freedom Walk was our biggest success story. The Florida Times Union did a great article on the event, if you missed it Click Here. For pictures of the event Click Here.

The 4th of July Freedom Walk may be in the past, but this is just the beginning of our efforts to fight child sex trafficking.  If you are reading this why not organize a walk in your city in 2011? Visit the Freedom Walk page for more information: click here.

Sean had an opportunity to go and help with relief efforts in Alabama. He’s on the ground now and if you’ve been following our Facebook or Twitter, you know he’s been deeply affected by what’s going on down there.

Not only has the family homeless shelter been completely destroyed, but over 1100 more families have lost their homes and everything they own.

To say that you have no idea what it’s like there is probably an understatement. I think if you haven’t lived through a natural disaster before, you really can’t comprehend the atmosphere there let alone imagine it.

But one thing that really has hit me (from a few thousand miles away) is the fact that at any moment, any of us could become homeless. It could be bad financial luck, it could be a fire, it could even be a natural disaster like this one. Homelessness doesn’t discriminate. And, God forbid, this ever happened to one of us, we would want the caring, unconditional love of a friend or stranger to help us in our time of need.

So we’re asking you to help. Help those who are now homeless, scared, and living in temporary shelters. Every dollar counts. Please donate – all funds raised will go to helping the families and children in Alabama.

- Jessica Wrench, Forsaken Generation

On December 19th, 2010 Forsaken Generation and AmeriChoice by United Healthcare present the 2nd annual Holiday of Hope.

Holiday of Hope is a HUGE Christmas Celebration for homeless and underprivileged children. There are currently 3 events being organized. Auburn, NY; Jacksonville, FL; and Keane, NH.

We are currently collecting toys at various locations for Holiday of Hope. Below is a list of drop off locations.

Jacksonville, FL – Any Hurricane Grille and Wings or Tropical Smoothie in Jacksonville or St. Augustine.

Central New York – The following Tops locations are accepting toys: Dewitt, N. Syracuse (Brewerton Rd.), Camillus, Skaneateles, and Auburn.

What is Holiday of Hope?

Read the article written by the Auburn Citizen Newspaper here.

Right here in Cayuga County, we have 16 food pantries that help families in need within our community. Sadly these pantries are experiencing one of the worst food shortages in years. When donations go away that means children go hungry, and that is not acceptable!

Forsaken Generation is organizing a 16 week food drive. And we are asking EVERYONE in our community to participate. A family should not have to make the choice of choosing between paying the rent or feeding their children. With your help we can fight hunger here in Cayuga County.

To give you an idea of the need, there are 16 food pantries here within Cayuga County. Some of the food pantries serve as little as 30 families a month, and some of them serve as many as 300 families each month!

A family of 4 for example can come to the pantry and get 65 food items for a week. That’s about 260 items in a month. So if a pantry is serving 80 families and let’s say each of those families are 4 person families, that pantry would need over 20,000 items of food in a month. A family of 6 will receive 119 food items in a week, which is 476 in a month.

As you can see the need is extremely great. But together as a community we can join together and help those who need it.

If you are a business, church, school etc. in Cayuga County and are interested in participating, please contact Sean Wrench with Forsaken Generation. We will provide you with a collection box and posters that you can hang up to encourage donations. You can contact me directly at 315-246-2979 or email me at sean (at) forsakengeneration.com.

To make a financial contribution, please click on the donate now button at the top right of this page. Once on the donation page you can select ‘food drive’ as the program you want to donate too. 100% of all money raised for the food drive will go towards purchasing food for the pantries.

A very special thank you to our sponsors of Feed Cayuga: Walmart, Tops, The Citizen, Finger Lakes Radio Network, and the Auburn Business Improvement District.

Visit our YouTube Channel.