2020 has been a tough year for everyone. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that people who were suffering already are probably having an even harder time of it now. We’ve been working hard since spring to come up with a COVID-friendly Virtual Lost Voices program for the troubled kids who still need us, and I’m proud to say that we’ve been able to make it happen.
The drawing you see here, which I call “The Healing Tree,” was created by a young woman on the last day of our first Virtual Lost Voices program at Vista Maria. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a more powerful statement about the work we do and how it’s perceived by the kids. If you click on it and look closely at the empty bench to the left of the tree, you will see that she drew a tiny commemorative plaque on the seat back.
The plaque says, “Lost Voices.”
To us, working with the kids in an entirely online environment represents a major change. For one thing, we had to purchase quite a bit of equipment and come up with protocols to make the sessions easy and productive without compromising the safety and privacy of the kids. Then we had to gear up and educate our team on how to use the technology – after all, none of us are true digital natives.
We initially had no idea if we would be able to use computers and iPads to develop the same sense of a non-judgmental safe space to explore feelings as we do in our face-to-face sessions. It turns out that these young people feel comfortable and completely natural communicating on a tablet or phone, so our team was able to almost immediately establish the familiar flow of trust. The songs came tumbling out. Here are the lyrics to the group song written during the first two days at Vista Maria:
Future World
In a future world, we’ll have some money.
In a distant world people might love me.
In a future world we won’t need perfection.
In a distant world we won’t have depression.
In a future world black lives matter.
In a distant world racism scatters.
In a future world we’ll make it better.
In a distant world we’ll all be together.
In a future world – no deception from our leaders.
In a distant world we won’t have cheaters.
In a future world no more haters.
In a distant world we’d all be creators .
In a future world we’ll break bread with each other.
In a distant world we’ll look out for one another.
In a future world we will be united.
In a distant world wrongs will be righted.
In a future world…
In a distant world…
Here is “Future World” performed by Kitty Donohoe, Samantha Cooper, MJ Epperson, and Mike Ball. While you will only see the four of us on stage, you will hear the voices of the girls singing their song along with us:
As you may know, the traditional Lost Voices programs have always culminated in a live concert, where our team would support the kids musically while they performed their work. In these COVID days there is clearly no safe way to do that, so we had to come up with another “ultimate goal.” We decided that focusing on recording and producing a CD of the week’s work might suit the bill, and again we guessed right. 
We had to work out some thorny technical issues regarding performing and recording music over the internet, but we were able to come up with good clean tracks and a great CD. We had a CD Release Party with the kids a couple of weeks ago, and they were thrilled. Each one of them has a copy of their CD, complete with the Healing Tree artwork, that they can treasure along with their memories of the Lost Voices experience.
We still have a lot to learn about Virtual Lost Voices and techniques to polish, but now that we know for sure that it works we have two more virtual sessions scheduled for this year. An exciting note is that one of those sessions is with a group called Samaritas. I’ve known them for years, but because the youth in their care are in decentralized group homes rather than under one roof Lost Voices has never been able to work with them. With our new Virtual techniques, we can now serve this sort of facility perfectly well, and so will be able to reach out to far more at-risk youth than ever before.
The bottom line of all this is that through the hard work of our Lost Voices team, and with the help of all our Lost Voices supporters, we are now able to bring our gift of hope and healing back to the kids. Thank you all!
