BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A safe place… that’s what the Compass House on Linwood Avenue is for homeless teens.
“We shelter 13 youth at any given time and at our shelter we do about 300 youth, and we have a non-residential resource center which is for youth ages 14-24 and we serve another 300-350 there,” Lisa Freeman, Executive Director of Compass House said.
Compass House provides runaway teens with resources, beds, and a place to call home. The non-profit is run on donations from people bringing in supplies and monetary grants from the state.
“New York state has already dropped some grants we are getting because they are not mandated grants they will continue them through this year but next year we will be down about $200,000,” Freeman said.
Freeman says her team is working to create different fundraisers to make up that money so they will not have to let any of their 26 staff members go. They have an activities challenge and an online auction planned for this year.
“We are trying to do a lot of non-traditional fundraisers because we can’t do a lot of traditional fundraisers so we are going to do a bunch of things online,” Freeman said.
They are always accepting donations that you can drop off anytime at 370 Linwood Avenue.
“We always need clothing, we could always use things to set up an apartment, we also need personal care items like shampoo and deodorant and things like that,” Freeman said.
For updates on fundraisers and events, you can follow them on Facebook.
