Grant lets nonprofit build on its mission giving kids new start

Laura Cruse (right), a mentor for Immerse Arkansas, and her mentee, Lyndsey Longinotti, talk Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021 at Mylo’s Coffee in Little Rock.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)
Laura Cruse (right), a mentor for Immerse Arkansas, and her mentee, Lyndsey Longinotti, talk Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021 at Mylo’s Coffee in Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Staci Vandagriff)

Lyndsey Longinotti met the Cruse family at a night of fellowship hosted by a Little Rock nonprofit and "fell in love immediately."

Almost three years later, she has a mentor and best friend who has helped her through the challenges of young adulthood, she said.

That nonprofit -- Immerse Arkansas -- was established in 2008 by Eric and Kara Gilmore in response to the needs of kids aging out of foster care as well as victims of trafficking, runaways and homeless youths. The organization continues to expand, recently adding a program to support families who foster or adopt.

Each year, more than 200 young people "age out" of the Arkansas foster care system.

About 20% of all youths who age out of foster care immediately become homeless, according to the National Foster Youth Institute.

The Gilmores saw the need for an organization like Immerse while serving as houseparents for a local group home. One of the teens they had cared for was dropped off at a bus stop with only a bag of clothes and a night's worth of bipolar medication the day after her 18th birthday.

Last week, Immerse received a $300,000 grant from the Sunderland Foundation to help fund the renovation and build-out of the organization's Overcomer Central building that began in October. It serves as the main hub for the youths the nonprofit serves, and the grant will also help provide furnishings.

The building, known as the OC, is being reconstructed from an open warehouse to a have dedicated spaces for hot meals, a kitchen, shower, laundry facilities, life skills classes, computers, mail, case management and Life Base coaches, among other things to help serve youths in crisis, Eric Gilmore said.

"It's our goal for this space to communicate to youth that they are wanted and expected here and that we are equipped and ready to serve them in the areas in which they need our support," he said. "This donation will help us complete this project, so many of our youth will soon benefit from this new OC."

In 2020, Immerse served 201 young people through the OC. Immerse anticipates it will be able to serve 250 this year. The renovated OC should be completed by May 31.

The organization's work is made possible through community support and volunteers. Community leaders like U.S. Rep. French Hill, Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., and Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins wrote letters of support to the foundation, according to a Tuesday news release.

"The work Immerse Arkansas is doing is exciting to me personally and as mayor," Scott said. "At a time the City is working to end chronic homelessness, we are fortunate to have them as a partner. They fill a niche which not only keeps people from being homeless, but also creates opportunities for those who may have experienced homelessness. That is certainly critical for our youth."

CREATING CONNECTIONS

On a given night in Arkansas, 336 unaccompanied young adults, 18-24 years old, are experiencing homelessness, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

As a teenager, Longinotti left her father's house and couch-surfed with friends, but after graduating from high school, she knew she needed a place to stay. Through a friend's mom, she got in touch with Immerse.

"We were like a band of misfits, but we're not misfits because we're all one big family at the end of the day," she said.

She entered Immerse's LifeBASE program for young adults from 18-24. The program provides a place to stay and helps create a plan for healing and growth. The LifeBASE team can include coaches, therapists, residence assistants, mentors and family. The program also equips young adults with tools beyond just housing, like job training, life skills classes and bus passes.

Since last year, the organization has been hosting weekly Zoom classes that also stream live on YouTube, discussing topics like basic cooking skills or how to express yourself through writing. It is working to expand to at least one class each day of the week.

Churches and families have been signing up to cook meals, which volunteers distribute to young people in need who would have been served at the OC before the covid-19 pandemic.

LifeBASE offers Immerse-owned housing, but is also looking into starting a program that allows individuals to open their homes and create a more family-like setting, said Jake Ritter, youth support coordinator. He has already seen two examples of mentor relationships that turned into host homes, he said.

Mentors play a critical role as young people transition into adulthood and can often be the only adult in a youth's life who isn't paid to be there, Gilmore said.

"The way you define a problem leads to how you're going to solve it. People try to define the problem around education, employment, housing -- we target all those things -- but first and foremost, this is a problem of broken relationships," he said.

BUILDING A FOUNDATION

In Arkansas, 8,981 children were found to be victims of abuse or neglect in 2019; that's a rate of 12.1 children per 1,000, according to Arkansas Department of Human Services.

"We know now from research, trauma that happens in relationships is healed in relationships," Gilmore said. "It's those supportive, long-term, loving relationships that really create a foundation for a young person to grow and explore the world, especially when they aren't getting that in a family context."

After Longinotti asked Cruse to be her mentor, Cruse went through the organization's standard training and background check. Often it takes just a few weeks, though sometimes more, for the program to match a mentor with a youth. As of February, Immerse had 20 active mentors, with 12 more young people waiting to be matched.

The two women bonded over their love of reading, which gave them topics to talk about and also opened the door for personal conversations, they both said. Cruse said it was important for them to find common interests so that they both enjoyed their time together. Since the start of the coronavirus emergency, they've been chatting via Zoom and sometimes meeting for coffee at Mylo's in Little Rock or walking in Allsopp Park.

While Immerse asks mentors to make a one-year commitment, Cruse said she never thought of it that way. She has had mentors herself and knows their importance, she said.

"People just want someone to listen to them," she said. "I just have to be a person. I don't have to solve any problems."

To Longinotti, Cruse is someone she can call for advice or just to talk, even now that she has moved out on her own.

"It's like having a best friend, but a best friend that's actually invested and not just someone you call your best friend because you've known them since childhood," she said. "It's probably the best thing that's ever happened to me ... It's really just, at the end of the day, you know there's someone there to care."

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