PRESS RELEASE: Alaskan Earns National Casey Foundation Award for Local Foster Care Work
January 21, 2013
(JUNEAU) - Alaska foster youth advocate and peer support group leader Amanda Metivier, herself a former foster youth, has just returned to Anchorage with a prestigious award. From a broad selection of former foster youth from all 50 states, Metivier has won the Casey Family Foundation’s Excellence for Children alumni award. Metivier went from foster care to college, earned her Master of Social Work at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and now helps foster youth and alumni at the University succeed in school.
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NEWS: 3rd Annual Holiday Laptops for Foster Youth Drive - Improving One Life At A Time
December 18, 2012
(ANCHORAGE) – Today Rep. Les Gara and the foster care group, Facing Foster Care In Alaska (FFCA), are launching the third annual Laptops for Foster Youth Holiday Drive. Over the past two years this drive has resulted in approximately 200 matches for youth. “Laptops are crucial to helping youth improve their chances of success in school, and establishing normalcy in very disrupted lives of youth who often have very few material possessions,” said Gara, a former foster youth whose father was killed when he was 6.
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Note from Rep. Gara: A Blatantly Alarmist E-News: Help A Foster Youth Lead A Good Life
December 3, 2012
I hope this letter finds you well. It finds me well. But it finds hundreds of Alaska’s foster youth needing help if they are to have a chance to fulfill the dreams they are entitled to pursue as Americans and Alaskans. And they need your help.
Below is an opinion piece I have run in newspapers. In case you missed it - here’s my “post-election bickering, put politics aside” heart tug.
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Note from Rep. Gara: 2nd Annual Holiday Laptops for Foster Youth Drive - Improving One Life At A Time
December 15, 2011
This week we are launching our second annual “Laptops for Foster Youth Drive”. Since last year we have matched over 60 youth with good, late model used and new laptops. Youth have used these laptops for school, to transport pictures of their families and friends, and to lead a life that more closely resembles those of their peers outside of foster care.
If you have a quality used, or new laptop you’d like to donate, please let us know, and we’ll help you make someone’s life better! The criteria for the laptops we are looking for is at the end of the e-mail. If you want to donate funds to purchase one or more laptops, we can help arrange that too.
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2nd Annual Holiday Laptops for Foster Youth Drive – Improving One Life At A Time
December 15, 2011
(ANCHORAGE) – Today Rep. Les Gara is launching the second annual Laptops for Foster youth Holiday Drive. Over the past year this drive has resulted in over 60 matches for youth who use laptops for school, to transport pictures of their families and friends, and to lead a life that more closely resembles those of their peers outside of foster care.
“We hope the holiday spirit will cause generous Alaskans to keep this success going into a second year,” said Rep. Gara, whose office started this effort with foster youth advocate Amanda Metivier last December.
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