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ENSPIRE MAGAZINE WS20 of the senior activities . I had a child when I was young , so I was forced to drop out of high school to take care of my son .
And , again , like I said , I didn ’ t have the chance to walk across the stage , I didn ’ t do the senior prom , I didn ’ t do any of the senior activities . So I kind of sympathized with the kids as seeing that it can be tough , and it ’ s disheartening because you work so hard to be able to receive your diploma and to be able to experience those things . I just kind of sympathized with these kids and I talked to Allen about what is it that we could do . And I kind of told him exactly what I was thinking about with S . O . A . R . and he was like , “ Yeah mom , lets go for it ,” because he loves doing things that we ’ re genuine about . we can provide . Let ’ s say for instance that they need something for financial literacy . We have a financial advisor on board that they could be able to reach out to to get a little bit of information on financial literacy . We will be having seminars on financial literacy as well , but whatever it is that we and S . O . A . R have to offer , the kids would have that resource available to them as well .
We asked how will kids inform their intake officer about their needs . “ They will call their intake officer or their intake officer call them .”
How do you plan to go about the S . O . A . R Movement in the future after the pandemic has settled down ?
have you seen with the families you help and what have you had to do differently to adjust in helping single parents and their families ?
Well , the thing is , a lot of them are not really asking for anything monetary . It ’ s mainly just a listening ear . And sometimes we go on about our day and we don ’ t even think that a listening ear could be good or maybe just a piece of advice that is uplifting and empowering that they may need .
How did you go about selecting the chosen high school seniors ? Why specifically 17 seniors ?
We always try to stay within whatever Allen ’ s number is . That ’ s why we started 88 Blessings in 2016 because at that time his number was 88 . And then about two years ago , he changed it to 17 , so we knew we wanted to do 17 kids .
We used this app that would pick out the numbers , and it disperses whatever number that would come up . We had the kids numbered from 1 to 94 because we had 94 applicants . And whatever number was chosen , that was the kid we chose and called .
We have a gala every year for our single mothers , and unfortunately it was supposed to be June 13th , and with the pandemic going on we can ’ t gather right now . We had to kind of like postpone that . So when S . O . A . R . came about and I said , “ Okay , why don ’ t we just take this , what we do for the single mothers , and let ’ s do it for the kids ?” Because they ’ re not getting their senior year activities . I mean , Senior ’ s Day Out , or Senior ’ s Night Out , Senior Breakfast , whatever it is , we just want to let them all come out and just let them be able to enjoy themselves .
We ’ re going to do this a little bit different with the seniors . We ’ re going to actually let the seniors showcase their talents .
How do you plan to assist them along their academic journey ?
Right now we ’ re building relationships with them . We have different intake officers that reach out to the kids , and we have them interview them , stay in contact with them , and uplift them , especially during this time . Because they will need a lot of uplifting . So what we do is , we have our intake officers to reach out to them , and then they ’ ll let us know whatever resources that they may need and
It will still be very formal , and of course Allen and some of his teammates will come out to mingle with some of the kids . Because sometimes we really have to be a beacon for the kids , and when they see someone who has overcome so much , then they will feel what they ’ re going through isn ’ t as bad as they think .
We understand that you and your son Allen Hurns created 88 Blessings to help single parents and their families . What changes
And sometimes , as I said , we just go about our day and we don ’ t even think about it , and we take that those things for granted . I ’ ve been doing a couple of visits , and a couple of phone calls , just to make sure that everyone ’ s okay . Because this is a difficult time and we ’ ve never dealt with anything like this .
What programs do you usually do with 88 Blessings ? And how do you think the pan-