About Us

North Phoenix Rotary has a long history of community service. In 2007, North Phoenix Rotary established AZ Kids Count to put a greater focus on the group it was working to help. Because of the escalating costs associated with fundraising efforts, we opted to do walk-a-thons to minimize our costs while maximizing our giving to the community. To date more than 90% of monies raised have gone directly to serve community needs. Each year we choose a worthy charity to help. Our first and second annual walk-a-thons benefited JC Lincoln Foundation’s Children’s Dental Clinic. Our last year’s walk-a-thon provided funds for the Ira A Murphy school playground shade.

This year’s event will benefit the Homeless Youth Connection, an organization that provides food and shelter assistance for homeless youth.

Homeless Youth Connection

The Homeless Youth Connection is an organization that provides food and shelter assistance for homeless youth on west side of the valley. Youth who through no fault of their own have only friends and stranger to rely on for life’s basic necessities. They are known as couch surfers. They want to finish schools friends and not get caught up in the administrative jungle of state welfare systems.

Who are these youth? Homeless Youth are elementary, middle or high school students, who lack parental, foster, or institutional care. The number of homeless youth in the United States could reach 2,000,000 this year. The projection for the State Of Arizona is 22,000. The majority of these children are between the ages of 15 and 18.

What causes these youth to be homeless? Causes of homelessness among youth fall into three inter-related categories: family problems (abuse), alcohol and drugs in the family, and residential instability such as foreclosure of homes. Recent statistics have found that 63% of runaway and homeless youth have been physically abused, and 22% were from drugs and unwanted sexual activity by a family or household member.

Some youth may become homeless when their families suffer financial crises resulting from lack of affordable housing, insufficient wages, and foreclosure of homes. We have noticed that many children of ages 16-18 years of age have been left behind. Some of these children didn’t know their parents were leaving until they arrived home from school. Usually the clothes on their backs were all they possessed.

What are the consequences of their being homeless? Homeless youth face many challenges of the streets. Few homeless youth are housed in emergency shelters as a result of lack of shelter beds for youth. Because of their age, homeless youth have few legal means by which they can earn enough money to meet basic needs. Many homeless adolescents find that exchanging sex for food, clothing, and shelter is their only chance of survival on the streets.

How are these individuals identified? The Homeless Youth Connection has responded to the counselors and teachers of the school district, and direct contact from the children themselves.