Your gift does more than change one life. It strengthens an entire community. It feeds families living paycheck to paycheck, gives dignity to isolated seniors, and provides stability for parents and children rebuilding after crisis.
Niema was sixteen the first time she came through the doors of CAPTAIN Community Human Services’ Runaway and Homeless Youth Shelter, Camp Casey. She arrived in hospital scrubs.
Our team got her emergency clothes from Treasures, our consignment shop, and thanks to generous donations, we were able to take her shopping for clothes of her own.
Niema stayed with us several times over the next two years. She celebrated a belated 16th, 17th, and early 18th birthday at Camp Casey. But Camp Casey can only serve youth through age seventeen. Once Niema turned eighteen, she had to move on — and she had nowhere safe to go.
Niema was supposed to move into CAPTAIN CHS’s own Supportive Housing program — but with only 10 units currently available, there wasn’t one open for her yet. Rather than let her fall through that gap, our team worked to bridge her to transitional housing until a CAPTAIN CHS unit became available.
During her time with us, Niema showed what she was made of. She worked toward her GED at Cheryl’s Lodge while holding an almost full-time job. She built enough trust with our staff to share her story. And she became a supportive peer — someone other young people at the shelter looked up to.
Our staff never stopped showing up, even while she was living outside of the shelter. CAPTAIN CHS’s Karyl’s Kupboard Food Pantry kept her stocked with groceries and hygiene essentials, and Treasures Thrift Shop helped her build a wardrobe she could be proud of — for job interviews, for simply feeling like herself. Working alongside our Director of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program and our Youth Shelter staff, Niema built something bigger: a real plan for her future. Staff helped her find a job. She started saving. And piece by piece, she built a life that was entirely her own.
Niema now lives in her own apartment — a CAPTAIN CHS Supportive Housing unit that finally opened up for her. Our staff helped furnish it, down to the last detail, so that when she opens the door, it already feels like home.
"I grew up with CAPTAIN. The Youth Shelter gave me a safe place to live, and the other kids looked up to me as a big sister. Now I’m 18, and I still can’t believe I have my own apartment, with my own couch and refrigerator!"
Our Director of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program has known Niema since that very first night at sixteen. “I feel like I helped raise her,” she told us. It is hard to think of a truer description of what this work actually is.
Niema isn’t finished. She has a plan for that too — built with our director and staff, step by step. She’s working toward becoming a certified nursing assistant. She has a job. She has savings. And most excitingly, she has a baby on the way who will grow up watching Niema build a life on her own terms. We’ll be right there with her, with additional services to help Niema stay on track as she becomes a new mom.
That is our mission.
And I want you to see what made it possible, because Niema’s story isn’t the story of one caring staff member — it’s the story of an entire network CAPTAIN CHS has built for young people exactly like her. A shelter that took her in at sixteen. A safe space to earn her GED. A food pantry and a consignment shop that made sure she never went without groceries, hygiene essentials, or clothes she felt good in. A Supportive Housing unit, furnished and waiting, the moment one opened up.
That is the difference between charity and infrastructure. CAPTAIN CHS is infrastructure — quietly running underneath this community, so that when a young person like Niema has nowhere left to turn, there is something solid, and someone consistent, to catch her.
Right now, CAPTAIN CHS has only 10 Supportive Housing units — which meant Niema had to wait to get into her apartment. We’re hopeful to bring 10 more units online soon, and we’re watching closely as Liberty at Saratoga, a new affordable housing development here in Saratoga Springs, moves through construction, with hopes of partnering there to expand our reach even further.
And this spring, thanks to your generosity, our Building Brighter Futures Capital Campaign reached its $5 million goal — investing in a new Community Engagement & Resource Center that will help us support even more young people like Niema for years to come.
But a capital campaign only builds a building. It doesn’t furnish an apartment for a young mother-to-be, fund the GED classes at Cheryl’s Lodge, stock the food pantry, or account for the months of transitional housing until a unit opens up. That is what your Annual Appeal gift does — today, this month, all year.
Please, send your gift today.
Because every young person deserves someone who doesn’t give up on them — and a door of their own to finally open.
Be the reason the next young person gets that chance.
