A Note From Rep. Les Gara

Dear Neighbors

Voice Your Opinions!
Voice your opinions! Letters to the editor make a difference. You can send a 175-word letter to the Anchorage Daily News by e-mail (letters@adn.com); or by fax or mail (call them at 257-4300). Send letters to the Anchorage Press via e-mail editor@anchoragepress.com or by mail to 540 E. Fifth Ave, Anchorage, 99501. Feel free to call us if you need factual information to help you write a letter.
Contact the Governor. The Governor can be reached at 269-7450; sean.parnell@alaska.gov; or www.alaska.gov.
Contact us. My office can be reached at: 716 W. 4^th Ave, Anchorage, AK 99501; by phone: 269-0106; visit my website at http://gara.akdemocrats.org; or email: representative.les.gara@legis.state.ak.us

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.

While many of us are spending time with our families, celebrating traditions, and enjoying the festivities, foster youth are faced with the bitter reminder that they are separated from their families during the holidays. Foster youth are highly mobile, some changing placements dozens of times while in care and often in the middle of the school term. As difficult as transitions are, it becomes even more difficult to maintain relationships when youth are limited by what they are able to lug from one home to the next, which frequently happens.

We need to do whatever we can to support these youth - whom the state has legal custody over. Given that obligation, I, as a state legislator, feel a need to act as a good parent to youth over which the state is the legal guardian. Donating a laptop is a great way to make a difference in a life, in academic achievement, and in a child’s often harmed social life.

I know some of this from personal experience. My father was killed when I was six, by someone who broke into his Harlem doctor’s office. As a result, I grew up in foster care. I was able to succeed, and know it takes others to help Alaska’s foster youth succeed too. Even if separated from loved ones, a laptop can keep those connections with friends and family, and adult mentors alive.

Rep. Gara and Amanda Metivier taking in information about foster care with Senators Ellis, French, Wielechowski, and Rep. Petersen.

Collaboration between our office and the non-profit Facing Foster Care in Alaska has yielded more success over the past year. We work with the Office of Children’s Services to locate current and recently graduated foster youth who can benefit from a laptop.

“Youth who have been matched with a laptop are performing better in their education and have a link to their family and friends as they make multiple transitions,” said Amanda Metivier, Statewide Coordinator of Facing Foster Care in Alaska. Metivier is also a foster care alumnus, and has successfully worked with the state, and my office, to help improve Alaska’s foster care system.

“Having a laptop has helped me with school and staying in touch with my friends,” said Anna Redmon, age 16, about the laptop she received through the program.

If you have a late model or new laptop you want to donate that:

1) is not more than four years old;
2) has a word processing program;
3) has internet capability; and,
4) works well,

Please call our office at (907) 269-0106.

There are also other ways to help if you have time, but no computer to donate.

If you want to mentor a youth leaving foster care, call Facing Foster Care in Alaska Statewide Coordinator Amanda Metivier at (907) 230-8237 to learn more.

Want to be a foster parent? There’s a dire shortage: call the Alaska Center for Resource Families at (800) 478-7307 to find out how to become one.

And, as always, please call if we can help you. Wishing you a great start to the holiday season,