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NOVEMBER 2019 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 35 Giving hope and a future to foster children “Why can’t I come back next year?” Brandon asked. It seemed like a good question to Michael Brewer. He was volunteering at a camp for foster children and 11-year-old Brandon was one of his two charges. After the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, Brewer heard a sermon at church urging for more involvement in the lives of America’s youth. That message led him to volunteer at the camp, which served foster children aged 11 and under. When Brewer showed up for volunteer duties the next year, he was asked the same question by another 11 year old, and his answer was the same, “I don’t know.” But the repeated question led him to further reflection. This camp was the only time some of the children got to spend with siblings who were living with other foster families. So he pitched the idea of including older kids. The camp’s managers said no. “Putting a face on foster-care kids changes everything,” Brewer said. “They’re just like any other kid, except that they’ve been put on a path — and not a great one — that was chosen for them, without any input from them.” So in 2004, he set about creating a new path, launching Hope and A Future. Their first camp was held two years later, welcoming 12 to 15 year olds. When, at the end, the older kids posed the original question: “Why can’t we come back?” Brewer’s response was, “You can!” And his work ever since has been to grow a foster-care support organization like no other in the Valley. Teenagers in foster care have only a 10 percent chance of adoption. Kids not adopted age out of the system, rarely going back to their parents. The other statistics are just as grim: One in five teens in foster care becomes homeless; one in four becomes incarcerated; just 33 percent A NEW PATH Judy Pearson | Contributing Writer