Thank you to all members, guests and our speaker for braving the snow and ice to come to the meeting on January 5! This was the first meeting since the Holiday Party and everyone enjoyed catching up with their Rotarian friends. Marc Friday gave details about the upcoming RCSE Oyster Roast on January 20 with the most important detail to RSVP as soon as possible to Kerri at rotarysavannaheast@gmail.com! The club also initiated new member Terry Enoch - welcome to the club Terry! After all Rotary business items were complete, Julie Wade, Executive Director of Park Place Outreach, spoke to the club.
Park Place Outreach is a twelve bed Emergency Shelter for youth ages 11-17. Most children stay only 3 weeks. Even though their stay at Park Place is brief, they immediately try to stabilize the youth by providing routine along with tutoring and counseling services. Most of the youth are African American. 60% of the residents are homeless runaways and 40% are DFACS or juvenile detention. The majority of the funding for Park Place Outreach is through federal grants.
Julie mentioned that homelessness is a small piece of the poverty and crime puzzle in Savannah. She shared many statistics with our group. Here are the highlights: 1. One in 30 youth will experience some type of homelessness 2. Youth are 346% more likely to experience homelessness if they do not have a high school diploma or GED 3. Savannah has a higher poverty rate than Atlanta and Charleston 4. 888 students in the Chatham County School system are homeless.