There is a wonderful charity in Michigan called Eagles for Children, and they have been helping Lost Voices change young lives for two years. Twenty of Michigan’s finest country clubs participate in a brilliant program in which club members donate a few dollars every time any member scores an eagle. For non-golfers, that involves scoring two strokes under par on a hole. In 2022 each eagle scored in one of the clubs raised, on average, $1,142. By the end of the year, the twenty clubs raised a total of $1,012,465! They gave Lost Voices a generous grant for this year that we used toward funding three programs with the girls at Vista Maria.
The first program was in April. We worked with a great group of young women who were specially cleared to be filmed. This is extremely rare with our population of kids, and was accomplished so that they could be included in a 2023 CNN Heroes segment partly filmed during a creative session and their final concert. They wrote a group song, titled The System, that deals with the frustrations of being in residential placement and in the foster care system in general. The lyrics are posted below.
Our second program was in August. Once again, they were a challenging but wonderful group of kids, who dug deep and produced some wonderful work. One young woman sang three heartfelt songs with tears in her eyes while her mother sat in the audience. Another, who was almost pathologically shy early on, turned out to be a bit of a diva, insisting on going first and belting out, in a beautiful voice, an awesome love long with a great hook:
Baby, maybe I will love you for a while.
Their group song, Amazing Paper uses paper as a metaphor for unlimited possibilities in life:
All the amazing things
You can do with paper.
There’s no limit, because
You’re the creator.
The complete lyrics of Amazing Paper are also below.
Our year-end program, planned for the week before Christmas will provide the continuity that is so important to the healing of these troubled but incredibly talented and deserving kids. None of this would have happened without the help of some great – and generous – golfers.
The System
Vista Maria, April 2023
Bless all the young ones with no safe harbor
Finding homes for teens gets harder and harder
The system is letting us down
They said they’d find me a home, but look where I’m at now We keep getting moved, from town to town
Nobody wants us around
Bless all the young ones with no safe harbor
Finding homes for teens gets harder and harder
We ain’t got control over our lives
We been here for months or years
We’re tired of shedding these sad and angry tears
And feeling like nobody even cares (x2)
Bless all the young ones with no safe harbor
Finding homes for teens gets harder and harder
Even though there is darkness, light will come
At least that’s what my therapist told me
Bless all the young ones with no safe harbor
Finding homes for teens gets harder and harder
Bless all the young ones with no safe harbor
Finding homes for teens gets harder and harder
Amazing Paper
Vista Maria, August, 2023
All the amazing things
You can do with paper
There’s no limit because
You’re the creator
Draw a landscape, a cat, a bunny, or a teddy bear.
Draw a monkey on a pony, galloping with fleas in his hair.
All the amazing things
You can do with paper
There’s no limit because
You’re the creator
Write about your problems, joy, hurt, and pain
Write a letter to your future self about all the love you’ll gain
All the amazing things
You can do with paper
There’s no limit because
You’re the creator
You can rip it up, and throw it away
Unless it’s money – think of all the bills you can pay
And help other people take their pain away
All the amazing things
You can do with paper
There’s no limit because
You’re the creator
